What Time Takes
by Yellow Mask
Summary: After the vicious war that tore Amestris apart, Ed and Al return to Rush Valley, looking for their childhood friend. But many things have changed during the war, perhaps Winry most of all...eventual Edwin, Royai. Complete.
1. The Sands Of Time

**Chapter 1**

**The Sands Of Time**

"Lieutenant Colonel!"

Ed hunched over his drink, trying to blend into the wall behind him. But the voice persisted, calling over the low, drunken buzz of the bar's other patrons. Finally, Ed gave in and looked up.

Riza Hawkeye was hurrying towards him, a small folder clutched in her hand.

"I'm off duty!" Ed snapped.

His voice was a little terser than it needed to be, but Ed didn't take kindly to interruptions. Not on this night. This was the night he went out to whatever sleazy bar he could find, bought himself a drink or six, and tried to drown his sorrow, regret and loss for another year.

Not even Al dared to interrupt him. Besides, the youngest Elric had other things to do – he had his own coping mechanism on this particular night. As regular as a well-made clock, when Ed finally staggered back to their room in the early hours of the morning, he would find his little brother asleep on the bed, surrounded by every picture of Winry they owned, tear tracks glistening on his cheeks.

Winry hadn't even seen Al returned to his body. And that piece of knowledge only served to make Ed more miserable.

**oooooooo**

When the civil war first broke out, the military divided sharply in two. Those called the H-Faction followed Wrath, the homunculus at the top of the military chain of command. Those called the Dissidents were their enemies, the men and women who refused to buckle to the Fuhrer's will.

Ed had been among the Dissidents, of course, but his first action in the war had not been to declare his allegiance. The very first thing he did, when he learned there really was going to be an all-out war, had been to try to get to Rush Valley. He'd had some crazy idea about getting Winry out of the country somehow, about taking her somewhere safe, but by the time war was declared it was already too late. All transportation had shut down, and Rush Valley was already occupied by the H-Faction.

Both Elric brothers had taken it hard. Ed had tried everything he could – eavesdropping on conversations he wasn't even supposed to know were taking place, calling in any favour he could, even drinking with some of the spies in the hope the alcohol would loosen their tongues and they would let something slip. Anything to find out what was happening there. Anything that had even the faintest, slimmest, remotest chance of giving him information on Winry.

And then, the first letter came.

One of Colonel – well, Major General, now – Mustang's spies had sought him out and slipped a small envelope into his hand. An envelope with Winry's handwriting curling across its surface.

Ed had gaped for several seconds, completely floored. Then his senses had returned, and he'd babbled questions at the woman, asking how she'd come into possession of the envelope, if she'd seen Winry, what was happening in Rush Valley and a slew of other queries he couldn't really remember.

What he did remember was that the spy had told him Winry was one of her contacts. The blonde mechanic had been left relatively unhindered by the occupation, as she was one of those deemed 'useful' by the officials. Members of the H-Faction came to her for automail, and any information she gleamed from their conversations was passed on to the Dissident's spies.

Ed remembered tearing the envelope open, his stomach churning with fear at the idea of Winry doing something as dangerous as becoming a spy's contact. If she was discovered...

But her letter had mollified him somewhat. She told them she was fine, she was being careful, warned he and Al about taking care of themselves and threatened him about looking after his automail. Ed remembered being very relieved to read that – if she could still threaten him about the state of his automail, her spirit had to be intact.

But the letters became grimmer as time went on. She never mentioned any particular sorrows, but Ed had practically sensed the downturn in her mood when he had read them. And then, six months into the war, the letters had stopped. No explanation, no warning...they had just stopped.

Ed and Al had panicked, both brothers convinced something dreadful had happened to keep Winry from writing to them. They had been ready to go down to Rush Valley to find out what had happened – ignoring the fact that it was currently crawling with H-Faction troops – but Mustang had stopped them.

Ed could remember that exact instant when Mustang had told them he forbade them to go to Rush Valley – he was sending them North, instead. It was the closest he had ever come to outright striking the Major General. Only Al's death grip on his jacket had prevented him throwing himself across the desk and tackling the man who stopped them from finding Winry.

Then, sitting on his hands in the North while civil war tore up the country below him, Ed tried to persuade himself that the sudden halt in the letters wasn't that suspicious. Maybe security had tightened up – it _was_ an occupied town, after all. Maybe Winry had accidentally lost contact with the spy who passed her letters along. Maybe she was very busy with her automail business.

But when a year slid by without any word from her, Ed began to feel the chill fingers of despair squeeze his heart. Another year went by, and the Rush Valley Resistance started up and liberated the entire valley before advancing onto the surrounding territory.

With no word from Winry.

With Al newly-restored, Ed convinced himself that it didn't mean anything. Even if Rush Valley was liberated, there was no communication between the Resistance and the Dissidents, so Winry wouldn't be able to contact them. But still, it was that year that the tradition began. On the anniversary of the day she stopped writing, Ed went to a bar, reminiscing about Winry, and ended up drinking enough to make his vision blur.

Three years in, the Resistance had started to make a difference in the war. Though some officials didn't trust the independent group, questioning the army's motives, it was clear their goals were the same. Elimination of the H-Faction.

Yet still there was no word from Winry. But Ed could understand that, in a way. After all, the Resistance had thousands of H-Faction troops between them and the Dissidents, and while it might have been possible to send word, it wouldn't have been worth the resources.

And now, five years after the war started, it was finally over. Caught between the Resistance and the Dissidents in an unintentional pincer movement, the H-Faction had been spread far too thin for far too long and had finally collapsed. Now, all that was left was the clean-up – dealing with the small pockets of H-Faction loyalists scattered here and there, repairing the cities and towns, and trying to put the economy back on its feet.

But there was still no word from Winry. And this time, there was no explanation Ed could talk himself into believing. The Dissidents and the Resistance could communicate easily now – there was talk of pulling the Resistance Commander in to talk with the Dissident leaders about a treaty. It was being handled cautiously, of course, given as how the Resistance army was as large as the Dissidents. Probably larger, actually, given that they had frequently boosted their ranks throughout the war with raids on prison camps.

So there could be only one reason why Winry hadn't contacted them. She...wasn't able to.

Ed still couldn't bring himself to say dead. But Winry was...gone, and this was his night to mourn her. And he wasn't pleased that Riza had interrupted him.

**oooooooo**

"I know you're off-duty, but I thought you might want to see this."

Ed refrained from rolling his eyes. It wasn't like he could order her away in any case – Riza's rank was equal to his now. Any officer who was half-way competent tended to rise through the ranks very quickly in wartime. He'd gone from Major to Lieutenant Colonel. Riza had jumped from First Lieutenant to Lieutenant Colonel on the battlefield, when her squad had been so decimated that the officials had been forced to promote her two ranks in one night.

So Ed took the folder from Riza's hands, flipped it open, and scanned the contents.

He had barely glanced at the first page before he shut the folder with a snap and growled, "Is this some sort of joke?"

He was holding in his hands the 'missing person' file on Winry. A file Ed had opened himself.

Riza sighed with the tone of one whose infinite patience was beginning to wane. Her hand combed through her hair, and Ed caught a brief glimpse of the numbers tattooed on the skin of her inner arm.

"Look at the bottom of the file."

With a snort of exasperation, Ed looked. And found himself unable to tear his eyes away.

_'Winry Rockbell – Status: Found. Living in Rush Valley.'_

**oooooooo**

"_AL!_" A screaming hurricane would not have made as much noise as Ed did. "_AL!_"

Staring at a childhood photo of he, Ed and Winry and getting quietly depressed, Al practically leapt through the roof when his brother came charging into their room, waving a file, looking as though he were about to burst with happiness.

"Brother...?" Al asked cautiously, wondering if Winry's disappearance had finally caused Ed to snap.

Ed seemed to calm somewhat, enough so that he could hand Al the file. The younger Elric took it, startled by the sparkle in Ed's eyes that looked suspiciously like tears of joy.

"Read it!" Ed yelled, feeling like a five-year old on his birthday. "It's...she's...just read it!"

Wondering what could have made his brother so ecstatic, Al flipped open the file and scanned its contents.

Ed knew the precise instant Al read that Winry was alive and in Rush Valley. His eyes widened, his jaw dropped, his mouth worked as though he wanted to say something, but couldn't express his joy in words.

Not that he needed to say anything – Ed understood. Far too many things had been lost during the war. And now, to learn that Winry wasn't one of those things...the feeling couldn't be described.

"W-we're going there, right?" Al stammered out, finally looking up at his brother.

"Of course we are!" Ed said, "We're going with Riza tomorrow. She has to go down to escort the Resistance Commander here for the negotiations, so it's no problem for us to hitch a ride."

"And Winry will be there in Rush Valley," Al murmured, as though some part of him still couldn't believe it. "Just like old times."

"Yeah," Ed nodded, smiling softly. But inside, his stomach suddenly knotted. It wasn't 'just like old times'. Not really.

He and Al had changed so much. Al was back in his body; a blonde-haired, gold-hazel-eyed twenty year old, his soft flesh and lean muscles replacing hard, cold armour. But Winry would probably be okay with that. She would probably celebrate it.

But what about the changes in him?

Washing up in the tiny bathroom, he glanced at his reflection in the mirror. A twenty-one year old man looked back at him as he silently catalogued the changes five years of war had wrought in him.

He had grown after Al's body was restored – he could even look Mustang in the eye now, so he'd definitely be taller than Winry. But strangely, that thought didn't bring the triumph he'd expected. His eyes looked much older than his years...but then again, Ed couldn't remember when it had been otherwise. His hair was longer, and he tended to wear it in a ponytail more often than the more-complex braid. He had hardly any facial hair, and what little he had was shaved religiously – he didn't want to look _too_ much like his father.

He took a guilty glance at his artificial limbs, though why he felt guilty, he didn't really know. He'd had no contact with her in nearly five years – he'd had no choice but to turn to other mechanics. It had been four years since Winry's automail had graced his body, and he used the word 'grace' because he had swiftly learned that was exactly what they had done.

His current limbs were considered top of the line among the Dissidents, but felt heavy, slow and awkward compared to Winry's work. Her automail had always moved as easy as a thought, and as Ed had never worn anything else, he had pretty much taken that for granted. Well, he'd never do that again. Once he was actually in the automail market, and not just relying on Winry, he soon learned that automail of the caliber Winry produced was so far above the normal standards it was like comparing the complexities of a car engine to those of a wind-up toy.

Ed swallowed, the movement making the scar across his neck ripple. He and Al had never actually been involved in any real warfare (and he suspected he had the Major General to thank for that), but the only battle they'd ever fought still haunted him.

**oooooooo**

They'd been sent to the North very early into the war, to protect a General named Hadram. And nearly a year into their assignment, they had met with one of H-Faction's most feared troops. An Angel of Death.

Angels of Death. No one quite knew where they came from, those people who seemed nothing more than living weapons. They were men and women, trained in weapons – everything ranging from guns and blades to their own fists and feet – in deception, stealth, even in alchemy. They had been an unstoppable force on the battlefield, a single squad enough to eliminate a small army. And that was not all. They had been spies, assassins, snipers...even recruiters.

There had only been seventeen Angels of Death in operation, yet Ed and Al were unlucky enough to meet one while protecting the assassin's target.

It had taken both of them and a small squad of fully-trained soldiers to bring the Angel down. Ed could still remember the taste of blood in his mouth, the burn of the wound in his neck as air touched the ragged flesh, the strangely blank eyes of the man beneath him as he drove his automail blade into the Angel's chest.

And then, horrifyingly, the Angel's eyes had cleared. He had looked down at the blade still lodged in his chest, then at Ed, his eyes dimming but apparently pleading. Ed had looked down, and found his knife had pierced a transmutation circle tattooed on the centre of the Angel's chest, similar to the one he had once daubed on Al's armour in his own blood.

It was that one clue that had led Ed to discovering the true horror of the Angels of Death. None of them had chosen that path voluntarily. They had all been subjected to alchemy – similar to the soul-binding alchemy he had used on Al, but instead of freeing the soul, they trapped it in servitude to the alchemist who cast the array. And the Angels of Death were forced to kill, and kill, and kill, with no regard to their will, emotions or opinions.

Ed still had nightmares about that man's eyes.

**oooooooo**

Ed realised he had been staring at his reflection for nearly ten minutes and shook himself from his trance. He didn't know why he was so worried at the changes in himself, only that some part of him was concerned that Winry might not like the new 'him'. He knew it was ridiculous – Winry was nothing if not accepting – but he couldn't help it. He'd seen people who were once close break apart because they'd changed too much.

What if he'd changed too much?

**oooooooo**

"You are, of course, aware that the primary reason for this transport is to escort the Resistance Commander and several of their trusted lieutenants here for negotiations," Major General Mustang said, his bored tone indicating just how little he thought of these formalities.

The 'formalities' being the need to debrief the Elric brothers before they were allowed to accompany Riza on the transport. Military protocol demanded it, but Roy saw little need for it. Ed and Al weren't going to disrupt anything, they just wanted to see their friend.

Ed could tell the Major General's heart wasn't really in the briefing. He seemed to sympathise with their eagerness, but then again, Ed supposed Mustang knew what it was like to find someone you thought dead suddenly alive and well.

It had happened to him, after all.

Lieutenant General Grumman, Riza's grandfather, the man responsible for the civil war and who had started the Dissidents in the first place, had been attacked by the Angels of Death while in transit. But this time, they had not killed.

They had captured.

The Lieutenant General had vanished, as had the small retinue that had been protecting him. A retinue that had included Heymans Breda and Riza Hawkeye.

The Dissidents received reports on Lieutenant General Grumman, as he had been transferred to a camp that just happened to be bristling with Mustang's spies. The Lieutenant General had died a few months after his capture, apparently from tuberculosis.

But there had been no such reports on Breda and Hawkeye. Both had vanished without a trace – until the Dissents got word of a small prison camp – Camp 13 – that had staged a successful rebellion against the H-Faction members stationed there. They had sent troops to provide back-up...and found Riza Hawkeye leading the rag-tag band.

Now, when she saluted, reached for something, or rolled back her sleeves on hot days, the mark of the prison camps was clearly displayed in the numbers tattooed on her arm, just below her wrist. 307561, etched into her skin with black ink.

And Ed had a horrible feeling that wasn't the only mark her imprisonment had left on her. He'd heard stories about what happened to most female prisoners, but the idea of Riza – strong, commanding, cool-as-ice Riza – enduring something like _that_ was so foreign that for a while, he'd simply told himself it couldn't have happened.

Then he began to notice the way Riza almost unconsciously tried to keep a distance of about three feet between her and everyone else. He noticed the way her eyes went curiously blank when a man brushed by her or touched her, as though she were controlling the urge to flinch. He noticed the way Mustang was careful to keep his voice low and nonthreatening when he talked to her.

There was only one conclusion to come to, however sickening that conclusion was.

But no matter what she had suffered, Riza Hawkeye had returned to Mustang when he thought her dead, so Ed thought he could surely sympathise with he and Al.

Unfortunately, Breda had never been found.

Mustang's little group had been hit hard during the war. Havoc was killed when a bomb planted in Central's hospital exploded, and Falman had perished on the battlefield. Fuery was the only one still alive, and had been promoted to Warrant Officer. But an explosive planted in a communications device he had been repairing had blown two fingers on his right hand off.

"...is that clear?"

Ed blinked, suddenly aware that Roy had finished speaking and was looking at him expectantly.

"Yeah, yeah, don't muck things up with the Resistance Commander," Ed said. "We get it, are we done now?"

"Brother," Al admonished, "Don't be rude!"

"We're done." Roy huffed something that sounded like a chuckle and waved them away.

Ed and Al had boarded the transport truck to Rush Valley before an hour was up.

**oooooooo**

_AN: That part about Ed growing...I forget which chapter it is, but it is hypothesised that Ed is eating/sleeping for Al's body, so has no spare nutrition to grow. So that means that when Al gets his body back, Ed will probably grow taller._

_And thanks goes, as usual, to LaughingAstarael, my wonderful beta._


	2. The Commander

**Chapter 2**

**The Commander**

Ed, Al and Riza – Black Hayate at the woman's heels – disembarked the transport on the outskirts of Rush Valley, in front of the towering walls that marked the entrance to the city/base of operations. Constructed by the H-Faction when they had first occupied the area, the wall stretched across the mouth of the valley, and the towering mountains on the other three sides made Rush Valley near-impenetrable.

Which was why it had been such a surprise when the Rush Valley Resistance managed to drive the H-Faction out.

They were admitted into the city without too much fuss. They only had to flash their Dissident identification before the watchman ordered the enormous gates opened to let them enter.

They were the recipients of a few stares, most puzzled or curious but none downright hostile. Ed was relieved – he'd been wondering what the Rush Valley Resistance people thought of the military. He'd been half-expecting outright attacks as soon as they walked in the gates.

People milled about the main thoroughfare, unpacking supply wagons, carrying boxes to the buildings on either side of the road. A group of men and women stood in front of a small shop, watching a large man with one white eye demonstrate how to trip an attacker. Children played hopscotch and threw balls in the street, under the eagle-eyed watch of parents and older siblings who were all too used to threats against their family. All wore what Ed assumed was the symbol of the Resistance, a circle with a vertical line through it, displayed on the left side of their shirts and tattered jackets.

A dark-haired woman threw several bundles of material onto the back of a small pony, making some low comments to the people surrounding her that resulted in a chorus of laughter. She turned around as though to grab another bundle from the pile at her feet, but then her gaze landed on the three Dissidents. Her eyes scanned them with the practiced gaze of a warrior before her eyes widened and she did a sudden double-take.

"_Ed?_" the woman's voice rang across the road as she jogged towards them.

With a start, Ed realised the woman was Paninya. But a Paninya quite different to what they remembered. The dark-coloured jacket she was wearing showed obvious signs of hard use and bore the same bisected circle as the others in the Resistance. Her automail legs looked to be in top condition, if outfitted with more weapons then they remembered. But she also had an automail hand, and burn scars across the same arm.

"Paninya?" Al gaped.

Paninya regarded him warily. "And you are?"

"Al," Ed said proudly, "In the flesh and out of the armour."

"That's fabulous!" Paninya grinned. "No wonder I didn't recognise you!"

Her eyes shifted to Riza. "Who's this?"

Ed couldn't help thinking that Paninya's sharp, inquiring tone was the voice of someone who was used to giving commands and who was used to those commands being followed.

"Lieutenant Colonel Riza Hawkeye," Riza introduced herself, offering her hand.

"Ah, the military escort sent to pick up our Commander," Paninya nodded, clasping the blonde woman's hand. "I'm Paninya."

She noticed Riza's canine shadow and bent to look the black and white dog in the eyes. "And who's this handsome lad?"

"Black Hayate," Riza answered, and Ed noted the pleasure in her voice. Riza was very attached to her dog, and someone who paid the animal the same courtesy as his mistress obviously earned a lot of points with the woman.

Ed sometimes wondered if that was Roy's motive for trying to interact with Black Hayate. After all, hadn't he been the one to look after the dog while Riza was listed as MIA?

"As for you two," Paninya addressed Ed and Al, rising to her feet after giving the dog a pat on the head. "I suppose you want to see Winry?"

Ed managed a nod.

"Very much," Al confessed.

"Just follow me," Paninya said, turning and trotting down the street. The others followed.

Paninya led them through the winding streets with ease, until they came to a large, grey stone building that Ed knew hadn't been here the last time he'd come. It must have been built by the Resistance people, or maybe by the H-Faction. Six people were outside, like some sort of informal guard. A man and a heavily pregnant woman sat on crates and talked cheerfully. Two men bent over a game of shogi, concentrating intensely. Two other men stood just in front of the door, back to back, their combined vigilance covering the entire vicinity. Paninya raised a hand to hail them, and Ed hadn't taken two steps towards the group before the identity of the men on watch sunk in.

"_What the HELL?_" Ed exploded, at the same time Al yelled a wordless sound of disbelief and Riza's gun rose. Hayate snarled beside her, his hackles bristling.

The man facing them was undoubtedly Envy, and as the giant beside him turned at Paninya's hail he was easily recognised as Scar.

But as the Dissidents converged on the wanted criminals, Paninya threw herself in front of them. As one, the men playing shogi and the man talking to the woman leapt to their feet, converging and forming a living wall between the three attackers and their comrades like a tidal wave.

"They're okay, they're okay – they're on our side!" Paninya yelled at Ed and Al.

Riza felt a hand grasp her arm as the red-haired man who had been playing shogi took a solid grip on her wrist. She quelled the sudden flash of unreasoning fear.

"Easy, First Lieutenant. These guys are on the level now."

That voice...she knew that voice. The presence of Scar and Envy took a backseat to the sudden recognition that sprang within her mind. Slowly, hardly daring to believe it, Riza turned.

Heymans Breda was standing beside her.

He had a scar running from his forehead to his jaw, the line broken briefly over the dip of his eye socket. His red hair was now sprinkled with strands of white, and the black numbers tattooed on his arm – 319862 – spoke of his own time in the prison camps.

He grinned at her. "Been a long time, Lieutenant. Wasn't sure I'd be seeing you again."

Riza couldn't help the answering smile that curled her own lips. "Wasn't sure I'd be seeing _you_ again," she echoed.

The words were few, but the wealth of emotion behind them was worth a hundred heartfelt embraces.

However, Riza also noticed Breda's reaction to Hayate's presence. Or rather, his lack of reaction. While he still eyed the dog warily, his reaction was nowhere near what it once would have been. She found herself wondering what had forced Breda to conquer his fear of dogs.

Ed and Al had apparently become aware a supposedly-dead man was standing beside them. Deciding that another friend coming back to life trumped the appearance of two deadly enemies suddenly on their side, they turned to extend their own, rather astonished greetings.

"No warm welcome for me?" Envy's mocking voice rose above the heads of the crowd surrounding him.

Ed's jaw clenched, and Al's eyes narrowed. Paninya made a small, calming gesture, and slowly, the three men parted. Envy's cocky grin made Ed want to smash his fist into the homunculus's face on principle. Scar, he was less sure of. Just a single nod in his direction, almost a gesture of acknowledgment, was all the reaction the Ishbalan had to their presence.

"_What are you two doing here?_" Ed spat, his voice low but tight with fury.

Envy shrugged affably. "What everyone's doing here, Fullmetal. Following the boss."

"The boss?"Al repeated blankly.

But they were interrupted as the door opened and out walked a woman Ed hadn't seen in five years. Winry Rockbell. He couldn't help his automatic rush forward...

Which was halted abruptly as the two men (minus Breda) again surged to form a living barricade – this time between Ed and Winry, their hands reaching for the guns strapped to their waists.

"Relax. I know these guys," the voice was definitely Winry, but the tone of command was something Ed had rarely heard from the blonde. At least, in regards to something not related to automail.

Reluctantly, the men parted. Ed was preparing himself for one of Winry's exuberant greetings, but was surprised when his arm was simply clasped tightly just above the wrist.

"I am so glad to see you guys," Winry said fervently, looking from Ed to Al, whose wrist she had in a similar clasp with her other hand.

"Riza," she smiled at the older woman.

Riza smiled back, but couldn't help being astonished at the changes in the woman she saw before her.

Winry's once-long hair was now cropped to just below her shoulders. She was dressed in the dark clothes of the Resistance, but the bisected circle wasn't present on her jacket. Instead, it was stitched in white on the black fabric of a headband that rested on the crown of her hair, keeping her fringe out of her face. Her normally slim frame had been stripped of all excess, and she probably would have appeared skeletal if not for the layer of thin, sinewy muscles under her skin. Two crossed gun belts – each holding a gun and bristling with ammunition – were slung across her hips, and a brace of throwing knives decorated her chest. If that weren't enough, a curved blade also rested at her waist. She wore fingerless gloves and strips of black material were wound around her forearms like a fighter's wrist guards. A long scar ran from the tip of her cheekbone, across her lips and down to the centre of her chin. When she smiled, her lips parted to reveal a chipped tooth in line with the scar.

"I knew an escort was being sent for the negotiations, I just didn't know it would be you guys," Winry said, looking around the circle of faces and grinning broadly. "How's it feel to be back in the flesh, Al?"

His grin and the sparkle in the younger Elric's eye was all the answer she needed.

Then Winry turned, calling over the two men and pregnant woman. "Get yourselves over here and be introduced!"

They approached slightly hesitantly, but the comfortable familiarity with which Winry interacted with Ed and Al seemed to put them at ease. The taller man and the woman looked strikingly similar – both with freckled skin, red hair and soft hazel eyes. The other man was short, but heavily muscled. His hair was black and tangled, and his eyes were a striking green.

"This is Christa Seren and her twin brother, Travis Burns," Winry explained, gesturing to the two redheads. "And this other lout is Kyle Seren, Christa's husband. Kyle, Christa, Travis...these two guys are Ed and Al," she indicated each brother respectively, "And this lady is Riza Hawkeye – her dog is called Black Hayate."

A few polite nods were exchanged, but Ed could tell it would take a while for these people to warm to them. He supposed when you were in the thick of battle, you regarded everyone around you with a certain amount of wariness.

But he still couldn't get over the changes in Winry. It wasn't just the physical, though those changes were numerous, it was something beyond that. Something in the way she spoke, the way she carried herself...

"By the way," Winry said, as though suddenly remembering something. "Christa, Kyle, Travis, see to the food truck. Make sure they remembered to stock for the extra twenty-seven from the last raid."

The three nodded and saluted as one, their right hand striking the bisected circle on their jackets. They held the salute until Winry returned it, then relaxed.

"Understood, Commander," they chorused, then turned away.

"_Commander?_" Ed and Al gasped as one. Even the normally unflappable Riza seemed shocked.

At their confusion, Scar fixed them a look that suggested he was having serious doubts about their intelligence. Winry grinned. Envy smirked. Paninya chuckled.

And Breda threw back his head and laughed. "Commander," he confirmed. "Every man, woman and child in this place answers to her."

Ed was stunned, Breda's words reeling through his mind. _'Winry...is the Commander of the Rush Valley Resistance?'_

**oooooooo**

_AN: I've been reading a lot of post-war fics lately, and most of them seem to revolve around the idea of Ed and Al being greatly affected by the war, and Winry helping them through it. And I couldn't help wondering...what if it were the other way around? And so this fic was born. This chapter is a little short, but the ones coming are much longer._

_Thanks go, as always, to LaughingAstarael._


	3. Fire Night

**Chapter 3**

**Fire Night**

"You'll like this place," Winry grinned, the gap-tooth smile looking disarmingly childish. "Trust me."

Ed looked up at the bar in front of them, his eyes landing on the battered sign which read 'Last Hope', and wondered again how Winry had managed to talk them into this.

Instead of heading with them to Central immediately for the negotiations, Winry had persuaded them to make it a night-trip so they could come to her favourite bar in the early evening.

Ed had to admit, it certainly had atmosphere. Unlike most bars he'd been to, which reeked of stale alcohol and depression, this had an air of easy-going friendliness to it. That is, if he ignored the company he was keeping.

He still didn't know why Scar and Envy – two of his most implacable enemies – were now, to all appearances, part of the Rush Valley Resistance. He couldn't understand why they, of all people, would be taking orders from Winry.

But, far more bewildering than that, was the fact both Envy and Scar seemed genuinely fond of the blonde woman.

The Ishbalan was as stoic as ever, but Winry made sure she always included him in conversations, and what few orders she gave him were obeyed without question. When Scar addressed Winry, he called her 'Vharla', which had confused Ed until Paninya explained it was an Ishbalan word, the closest English approximation of which would be 'leader in the time of war'. And when Winry chuckled with her followers about something they called 'the paper bomb incident', Ed could have sworn he saw the corner of the man's lips lift. Which, coming from Scar, was practically a full-fledged laugh.

Envy was different. He _acted_ mockingly disruptive and disobedient, but upon closer examination Ed could see that nothing he did would actually rile Winry. And like Scar, he had his own nickname for the blonde woman. In response to a command, to refer to her in a conversation or to address her, he simply called her 'boss'. But when he was playfully teasing her, he called her 'Pidgeon', supposedly referring to the fact she had to be bird-brained to recruit him in the first place. But these minor rebellions aside, it was clear Winry had his full and total loyalty. At least, as much loyalty as someone like Envy was capable of.

But then, all of her little 'group' were loyal to her.

Paninya...was Paninya. She had been Winry's friend since before the war, and apparently adversity had only strengthened their bond. Where there had once been easy friendship, there was now the iron-solid camaraderie of two people who had put their lives on the line for each other. A level of understanding so profound that they barely needed words to communicate – a glance or a simple gesture could convey an entire conversation.

Breda was another story. He was a military man, and while you might gain his obedience if you had a higher rank, the only way you gained his loyalty was through his respect. And having been through the things he had, his respect was hard to gain. But Winry obviously had it, in spades. She also had his admiration, though Ed could only guess at what Winry had done to earn it.

Watching as Winry clinked glasses with her circle of comrades, Ed had the feeling they had barely scratched the surface of the changes the war had wrought in their childhood friend.

"Here – try this," Winry said, passing a small glass to Ed and breaking him out of his thoughts. "It's my favourite."

Ed sipped at the beverage, feeling the familiar burn of alcohol on his tongue, yet the drink tasted rather like lemonade, with a sharp tang of citrus that left his mouth feeling pleasantly clean.

"Lemon Twist," Winry explained. "One of Last Hope's specials."

Paninya, Envy and Breda all nursed their own favourites in front of them. Somehow, it didn't surprise Ed to see that Scar wasn't consuming any alcohol.

Winry was tipping glass back to catch the last few drops of her drink when she suddenly dropped the glass to the table to call out. "_Hey! Miracle-worker!_"

Ed turned to see who she had hailed. And he could feel his eyes bug out. Beside him, Al drew in a quick breath of utter astonishment. Even Riza looked surprised.

The man's hair was almost entirely grey – only a few streaks of black showing through here and there – he bore the six digit prison camp numbers that decorated the forearms of many of those in the Resistance, and his face was mutilated. But he was still recognisable as Dr. Tim Marcoh.

He turned at Winry's greeting, and made his way over to their table. At a look from Winry, Envy hooked a spare chair in the corner with his foot and dragged it towards the table, the automatic response to her unspoken command startling Ed almost as much as Marcoh's appearance.

Marcoh sat gratefully, and upon closer inspection Ed could see his eyes were bloodshot, as though he hadn't been sleeping well.

"You look like hell," Winry said bluntly. "When's the last time you slept?"

Marcoh gave a small, weak smile. "And when's the last time _you_ slept, Commander?"

When Winry paused, thinking it over, it was obvious it had been a while. "Doesn't matter – I'll sleep in the truck tonight. Negotiations in Central, you know."

"You need to have a more regular schedule, Winry," Paninya chided. "It's not healthy for you to go days without sleep."

Winry waved her concerns away. "I know what I'm doing, Pan."

Breda barked out a laugh. "Leave her be. We've having a friendly drink here. Socialise now, lecture later."

"By the way, this is my escort to Central," Winry told Marcoh, turning to the three Dissidents. "I believe you've met them before."

"I'm Edward Elric, remember me?" Ed said, extending his hand to Marcoh while privately wondering how Winry had learned of their acquaintance. But then, Marcoh himself had probably told her.

**oooooooo**

"Your new headquarters seem very strange," Riza commented to Breda, watching the scene in front of her.

A small bonfire had been lit in the centre of Rush Valley, and a circle of men, woman and children wheeled around it, dancing joyfully. Pair dances, waltzes, or reeling, single-person freestyle, they all danced wildly to the tunes played by the musicians on top of a nearby building.

All in all, it wasn't the sort of party one would expect to see in military headquarters.

Ed, Al and Riza sat apart from the others, feeling as though they would be intruding if they joined in. Breda had joined them.

"That's because we're not just a headquarters here," Breda said, grinning as the players struck up a fast jig. "We're a community. Remember, we raided prison camps, and unlike the Dissidents, we didn't have refugee houses to send the civilians to. And Winry wouldn't turn them away. So they came here."

"Wasn't that difficult? Having more civilians than warriors?" Al asked.

Breda shook his head. "Not in the way you might think. You see, our Commander's rule here is that everyone pulls their weight. So we had training sessions. Taught them to scout, to fight, to shoot, follow orders...everything you'd get in proper military training. Winry insisted on it. She even trained most of them herself."

"But wouldn't it have been smarter to have someone like you train them?" Ed asked. "Winry's never trained for combat."

Breda looked uncomfortable. "Look, I can't say much...just trust me when I say she was by far the best choice."

"What-?" Ed started.

"Listen," Breda's voice lowered, "If you hear it from anyone, it should be Winry, okay? So don't ask me anything more."

Ed subsided, but Al could see the worry in his brother's eyes. The same worry churning in his own stomach. The way Breda had made it sound...as though Winry had somehow, somewhere, been formally trained in combat. But how? And by who?

"But why are you guys just sitting here?" Breda asked, changing the subject hastily. "You're missing out on all the fun!"

"We're fine here," Ed defended. He couldn't shake the idea that he didn't belong there, among those who'd faced the chaos of the front lines. Those who'd fought beside each other time and time again, risking their lives almost daily...

It was a new feeling – being a stranger in Winry's world.

"Come on," Breda encouraged. "Everyone's enjoying themselves tonight."

Ed couldn't help feeling he had a point. Paninya was in front of them, dancing with Dr. Marcoh, the young woman having persuaded the aging doctor to join her in a dizzying two-step. Envy and Winry were dancing – in a spectacle that Ed found very surreal – and as he watched, Envy lifted the smaller woman in his arms, supporting her by the waist as she bent back, the tips of fingers stretching towards the flames behind her, before she slithered through her partner's arms and back to her own feet.

"Scar doesn't seem to be enjoying himself," Ed pointed out, gesturing to the Ishbalan who leaned against a wall, the flickering flames casting strange shadows on his face.

But he had spoken too soon. Apparently realising the near-brooding state of her ally, Winry detached herself from the whirling throng and approached Scar. She leaned against the wall beside him, her face slightly turned towards his, speaking in tones so low they couldn't catch the words. Standing next to the bear-like man, Winry seemed almost pixie-like in comparison.

It seemed only to emphasise the fact that Scar could have snapped her in half without breaking a sweat. But when he looked at her in response to some comment inaudible to the others, there was genuine affection in his gaze. Winry said something else, and then Scar did something Ed had never seen him do before.

He laughed.

Well, it was more of a chuckle than a laugh; a deep-chested noise of amusement. But it was still the most cheerful he'd ever seen the Ishbalan. Though the fact that they'd only ever faced each other in battle might have had something to do with that.

"Did you see that?" Al breathed, "Scar actually laughed!"

As though she heard him, Winry looked up, and her eyes met Ed's. A soft comment to Scar, and she pushed back from the wall, heading towards them. He wasn't sure what to expect, but then she extended her hand to him and he began to get an idea.

"Come and dance, Ed."

He shifted, struck suddenly by a feeling of acute embarrassment. "I don't dance."

"Come on," Winry encouraged, though Ed noticed her voice lacked the pleading tone that once would have accompanied those words. Now, her voice was firm and brooked no refusal.

"Al, you too," she said, her tone bordering on a command.

Before either of them could protest, she had grasped their arms and yanked them to their feet with surprising strength.

Breda and Riza watched them go, stifling their laughter.

"I've been meaning to ask you," Breda said, his tone striving for casual, "How are the others?"

Riza bit her lip, a nervous habit developed during her time in the prison camp – using minor pain to distract from larger, more insistent agony. She had been expecting that question.

She told him of Roy's promotions, of her own escape from Camp 13...and the grimmer stories of Havoc and Falman's death, and Fuery's injury.

Breda was quiet for a long time, swallowing thickly. "It's...it's to be expected, I guess..." he mumbled. "Not everyone could be as lucky as you and me."

Riza nodded shortly, trying not to dwell on the faces of those lost forever. Instead, she turned back towards the fire.

Paninya had seized Al's arm as Marcoh dropped out of the circle, panting heavily. Satisfied that the younger Elric had a partner who would ensure his feet weren't idle, Winry concentrated on the older brother.

Ed found himself almost grateful the musicians on the roof were playing more temperate tunes than previously. Winry's hand on his arm was warm and firm, the pressure of her small fingers hinting at the strength behind them. The heat from the fire made her cheeks flush pink, like a dusting of rose petals across her face. She was panting lightly from her previous exertions, her hair wild and tangled, stray locks plastered to her skin with a light sheen of sweat.

With the fire leaping behind her, her fierce grin breaking the line of the scar on her face as her body twisted and turned like a pale panther, Winry looked like some ancient warrior goddess; powerful, unbreakable, untouchable. But the body in his arms was just skin and muscle and bone; the mortal flesh of a leader who didn't eat or sleep as often as she should.

"Just for old time's sake," Winry said, her eyes sparkling, "How's your automail?"

Ed didn't laugh, but he couldn't help nor hide the smile that stretched his lips. "Not as good as yours."

"Of course it's not as good as mine, Ed," Winry chided, "I'm the best."

This time Ed did laugh. Winry sighed, smiled and rested her head against his chest, like one of those intimate waltzes he'd seen in old paintings. The scent of her hair drifted to him over the cloying smell of woodsmoke from the fire. The blonde locks didn't smell of fruit or flowers or any kind of perfume, they just smelled...clean. Almost of their own volition, his arms moved around her, the automail bracketing her waist, his flesh and blood fingers running through Winry's short, clean-smelling hair.

With her head bent against him, hiding the scar on her face and the hardened look in her eyes, she almost looked like the Winry he remembered. The Winry whose hands still had the scrape of a mechanic's callouses instead of the smooth hardness of a fighter's toughened skin. The Winry whose hands had held a wrench more often than a gun.

It was strange; she reminded him of a warrior goddess one moment, and a long-distant memory the next.

Because he was starting to realise – truly realise – that was what his memories of Winry were. Long-distant. His memories were of a young, teenage mechanic whose painful past was contradicted by a heart-warming innocence. A girl with soft eyes and a warm voice that had never failed to leech away his pain. A girl whose hands were both strong and delicate as she cradled the metal she loved. A girl who persuaded the gears and cogs and wires of automail to work together seamlessly to better the lives of those who would otherwise be crippled.

Those were his memories of Winry. But memory was memory because it was in the past. And now, Winry was a young woman who led an army. A woman with hard eyes and a loud, commanding voice that never failed to gain instant obedience. A woman whose hands had abandoned the metal she loved and cradled weapons instead for the sake of those around her. A woman who persuaded people like Scar and Envy to work together to protect the people under her command.

The fire sparked and popped, and Winry turned her head towards it, the sudden wash of light highlighting the long scar on her face as she watched her people's revelry. In that split second, Ed could see the terrible, wonderful balance of her – the combination of a harsh, deadly commander and a caring, compassionate leader. He could see her inner strength and courage, the small lines around her eyes that told of her suffering and the firm set of her mouth that spoke of determination.

And in that instant, he could understand why Scar and Envy would give their allegiance to this woman.

He just wasn't sure he knew who this woman was.

Ed was shaken from his musings by the feel of Winry's arms snaking around his waist. When she spoke, her voice was far softer than it had been before.

"Ed...I've really missed you guys."

And Ed could almost smile. She may have changed – the years of war may have re-shaped and hardened her...but she was still Winry.

"I've missed you too, Winry," he whispered, and the hoarse honesty in that statement made his voice break.

**oooooooo**

"Now remember, I'm leaving you guys in charge," Winry told Travis, Christa and Kyle as they stood in front of the truck that would take her to Central for the negotiations. "I informed the people about it last night, so I don't think there'll be any trouble. Just keep things running smoothly, don't take any crap, and I'll be back soon."

"We know, we know," Christa sighed. "Don't fuss." She made shooing motions with her hand, as though driving Winry onto the truck like a naughty dog. "Just go, we'll be fine."

"You better be," Winry muttered, embracing each in turn.

As she turned for the truck, all three snapped salutes. She returned the gesture, and clambered into the vehicle that would take them across the country. The journey would last most of the night – with the trains still out of commission, a trip from Rush Valley to Central took quite a while.

As a gesture of goodwill, Dissident officials had given the Resistance Commander the opportunity to bring several of her lieutenants along. Winry had chosen to bring Paninya, Breda, Scar and Envy. While Ed questioned the wisdom of bringing the latter two into a place crawling with military personnel, he didn't question aloud, even as some part of him wondered if Winry was truly aware of all her strange allies were guilty of.

Winry sighed happily as she sprawled on a row of seats. The truck was originally designed for transporting soldiers, which meant there were several rows of seats. Far too many for them, but it did mean there was a lot of room to lie down, catch upon some much-needed sleep...

Envy leaned over the back of her row of seats, crossing his arms arrogantly. "You sure it was a good idea to leave those guys in charge?"

"I'm sure it was a good idea, Envy," Winry said, and Ed wondered how such a naturally kind voice could sound like it was made of steel razors. It seemed Winry didn't like having her judgement questioned.

Apparently Envy had picked up on her tone too, because he hastily back-tracked. "No disrespect meant, boss."

"They'll do fine," Winry said confidently. "And Miracle-worker will help them – people listen to him."

"Why do you call Dr. Marcoh that?" Al asked.

For a split second, Winry went stiff, her eyes blank as though she were about to lie. The air grew suddenly thick with tension, as Paninya and Breda suddenly did everything they could to avoid their eyes, while Scar and Envy watched Winry as though waiting for a bombshell to drop.

"He saved my life," Winry said at last.

The tension eased, though not by much.

"How?" Al queried.

He could feel the pressure of Ed's gaze, seeming to ask him how he could possibly be oblivious to the tension in the air. But he wasn't oblivious. He was well aware how anxious his questioning was making Winry. But ever since they'd found Winry, he'd felt almost a stranger to her. He knew his brother felt the same.

If they were ever going to get back what the three of them had once shared, it was going to take a lot of painful, hard-to-ask questions.

He didn't want to go into anything like that with all the others around, but he did want to know how Marcoh had saved Winry's life. It seemed a rather innocuous question, and he couldn't understand why it had made her so tense.

"One day, we were ambushed while scouting," Winry told them, her voice bland, "And in the chaos, one guy managed to get a knife into my back. Scar blew his head off, and Paninya managed to get me to the Doc before my lung collapsed any more. He used alchemy to fix me up – if it had been any other doctor...I wouldn't be here right now."

Ed felt a slight chill. Some parts sounded like they had to have been exaggerated, but the bland tone she recited it in left no doubt in Ed's mind that it was the literal truth. But he still couldn't figure out why everyone had been so tense.

Winry waited a moment or two to see if they would continue the questioning, and felt a profound sense of relief when they didn't. She didn't want to get into...that story. Not here. Maybe not ever.

So Winry stretched like a cat, yawned, and closed her eyes.

"Wake me when we get there," she murmured.

**oooooooo**

Ed woke some time later, surprised to find he'd gone to sleep. He lay still for a moment, trying to determine what had awakened him. Then he heard the murmur of voices, soft and low-pitched, as though trying to keep quiet. A quick glance around him told him why – everyone was asleep. Except the driver, the top of whose head could be seen through the small window in the wall that separated the cabin from the rest of the truck, and the two voices that had awoken him.

Ed attuned his hearing to the voices coming from behind him, feeling like an eavesdropper but unable to resist the prickling of curiosity. A prickling that only increased to a burn when he identified the voices as belonging to Envy and Winry.

"...nothing there for me, with the others and Father dead and all."

"Yeah..." Winry sounded wistful. "Nothing much for me in Central either. Or anywhere else, for that matter. My grandmother was pretty much the only family I had, and now she's gone, so..."

Ed could say, quite confidently, he had encountered nothing as bizarre as Winry discussing the absence of her family with one of the creatures responsible for robbing her of it in the first place.

"What about the pipsqueak?" Envy asked.

Ed stiffened on reflex, though he knew logically that he was now taller than Envy, and as such the insult had no real basis behind it. A fact which Winry swiftly pointed out.

"He's taller than you now. Seems pretty stupid to keep calling him that. And what do you mean by 'what about Ed'?"

"Well...threatening you was always a sure-fire way of getting a rise out of Fullmetal. We – the other homunculi and I – figured he had a thing for you."

"Touching as all this concern for my lovelife is...you're way off. Ed and I never hooked up."

"Doesn't mean he'd have objected to the idea, Pidgeon."

"Maybe, maybe not," Winry stared out the small window at the black curtain of the night. The conversation was dredging up an old memory – ancient by some standards – of sitting in a train after hearing a promise, watching as a boy's back disappeared and coming to a sudden realisation.

_'I think I may have fallen for him a long time ago...'_

"I think he'd have jumped at the idea," Envy said, with a slight sardonic bite to his tone.

"Envy, shut up."

"Sure thing, boss."

There was several seconds of silence, in which Ed wondered if he'd really been that obvious – that every homunculus and their dog knew about his feelings for Winry. He'd thought he had it under wraps, but Envy talked as though his feelings for the woman were common knowledge – something everyone but Winry knew.

"You should just go ahead and jump him," Envy piped up again. "Get it out of your system, you know?"

"No."

Another pause.

"Come on, Pidgeon. You know he'd be thrilled to take you."

"No."

"Well, _I'd_ be thrilled to take you," Envy purred, his tone turning salacious.

Winry laughed. "While I freely admit to some curiosity...sorry, never going to happen."

"Damn. Still, I tried."

"And you were very brave to do so." Winry sounded as though she were on the verge of laughing again.

"Does that mean I can keep trying?"

"Go to sleep, Envy."

Ed started slightly. He didn't think homunculi needed sleep, but Winry said it as though it were a necessity for the green-haired humanoid.

"_You're_ not asleep," Envy pointed out, faint accusation in his tone.

Winry sighed. "Too used to the midnight watch, I guess. But I meant what I said, Envy. Go to sleep."

"Sure thing, boss."

And Ed was left alone with his thoughts. Thoughts which, after overhearing that conversation, were churning a little too wildly to let him sleep again.

He spent the rest of the night studiously not thinking about what it would be like if Winry followed Envy's suggestion about jumping him.

**oooooooo**

_AN: Again, lack of stupid mistakes can be credited to LaughingAstarael's wonderful beta-reading._

_Also, justcallmefaye has drawn a lovely picture of the Ed and Winry dance in this chapter – the link is in my profile!_


	4. War Stories

**Chapter 4**

**War Stories**

After several hours the driver announced they were approaching Central, and Ed began to wake the other passengers. Al and Riza woke quickly – Riza with a slight tension in her muscles that betrayed a life in the middle of a war. Breda and Paninya were just as easy to rouse – like Riza, it took very little to wake them and the instant they did they were ready for action. Envy flipped neatly onto his feet when Al tapped his shoulder and Scar opened his eyes as soon as Ed was within five feet of him.

Finally Ed stood in front of Winry, smiling fondly at her sleeping form. Curled into a small ball, with her hair splayed over her face and hands tucked under her head, she looked like a young girl again, asleep after pulling an all-nighter while working on his arm.

He reached down for her shoulder, only to find his wrist gripped in Paninya's automail hand and yanked away.

"Don't," she hissed, shaking her head. "It's not a good idea."

Carefully, Paninya toed the sole of Winry's foot. "Winry, wake up!"

It happened within the space of a heartbeat. Winry leapt from the seats, a gun flew into her hand, and before anyone could react she was on her feet, gun cocked and ready to fire, her body tense as a coiled spring. She blinked, seemed to realise there was no threat, then relaxed and holstered her gun.

"Morning, everyone," she yawned.

Ed knew his jaw was hanging open. Beyond anything else, the hair-trigger reflex had given him a terrifying example of just how much Winry had changed – of what she must have gone through to change like that, to develop reflexes like that.

He knew Riza and Al were similarly astonished, but Paninya, Breda, Scar and Envy didn't blink twice. He supposed they considered it normal.

Winry yawned again, stretching. "Are we at Central?"

Riza recovered herself first and nodded. "The Major General should be waiting for us at the gates."

"Major General...?" Winry murmured, "Oh, right...Roy Mustang."

"Okay, people," she turned to the others, her voice sliding into 'Commander' mode once more. "I think everyone is aware of the potential shock value your appearance has."

Breda snickered, Envy snorted, and Scar just nodded in acknowledgment of Winry's words.

"Which is why I think I should go out first," their leader continued. "And I'll introduce Paninya first, then Breda...and then Scar and Envy, because you two are the ones most likely to produce a hostile reaction. One shock at a time, people."

Ed noticed that Winry seemed to be slipping into the manner of speech often used while planning battles.

But then Riza was opening the doors, and he stepped with her, Hayate and Al into the light of the early dawn.

**oooooooo**

Major General Roy Mustang waved the truck in through the gates that protected Central. He, Fuery and Armstrong stood at attention as it coasted to a stop, ready to welcome the Commander of the Rush Valley Resistance.

He just hoped they weren't some old, balding man with an ego the size of a mountain who was bent on taking over Amestrian government simply because he had the biggest army.

Ed, Al and Riza stepped out of the truck, and Roy had a moment to be surprised that the Elric brothers had returned with Riza. He would have thought they'd have wanted to spend more time with Winry. But then Riza saluted him, and his surprise was lost in the familiar stab of guilt that speared him whenever he glimpsed the black ink on her forearm.

Just one of the many things that were his fault. He'd sent her and Breda to guard her grandfather, saying that the Dissident's founder needed the very best guarding him. And then they'd been captured; Breda never to be seen again, and Riza...

Roy swallowed the pain that came rushing upwards at the memory. He'd been among those sent to help liberate Camp 13, and finding Riza leading the prisoners there...words couldn't describe it. He'd shouted her name and run towards her, the facade of professionalism tossed in the dust behind him...

And her face had paled, and she'd skittered away from him like a frightened rabbit.

And then he'd known.

He'd been careful ever since...religiously so. He never touched her or leaned too close to her, and he was careful to leave her plenty of personal space so she never felt trapped. Not one word of innuendo passed his lips, and his playful flirting had vanished.

He didn't know if it made any difference, didn't know if she was grateful for his clumsy attempts to ease her or contemptuous of his pity. But he had to do something to ease the savage guilt that gnawed at him, and if he couldn't take away the nightmares or the haunted look from her eyes then these gestures – pitiful though they might be – were the only things he could do for her. And she did seem to be getting better, however slowly that recovery was progressing.

"Did you persuade the Resistance Commander to return with you?" he asked, seeing no one following them out of the truck.

"We did," Riza nodded, "But I should warn you, sir...the Commander may not be what you expect."

A figure stepped from behind the open truck doors and into the sunlight.

And Roy stared.

It definitely wasn't an old, balding man with an ego the size of a mountain who was bent on taking over Amestrian government simply because he had the biggest army. It was a young, blonde girl with an air of calm assurance about her and a look in her eyes that practically radiated inner strength. She looked vaguely familiar...

She smiled, a chipped tooth flashing past scarred lips for a brief instant. "Remember me?"

Armstrong's eyes widened. "Miss...Miss Rockbell?"

"Call me Winry."

Roy's brow furrowed, and he heard Fuery gasp. This hardened warrior in front of them was Fullmetal's mechanic?

Looking her over, he could see the war hadn't been kind to her. The scar across her face, the lines around her eyes, the inherent wariness in the way she moved...all were mute testament to years lived in hardship, years spent on the battlefield.

Roy and Fuery were staring unabashedly and Armstrong was stumbling over his words when their military training asserted itself, reminding them of their job.

"Commander-" Roy began, his tone formal.

"Winry," Winry corrected, a note of command in her voice, saying she would brook no argument.

Roy caught the hard glint in her eye and conceded. "Winry...did any of your officials accompany you?"

Winry nodded, "I'd like you to meet Paninya."

A dark-haired, dark-skinned girl stepped from the truck. Legs and a hand made of automail reflected the early light like the glassy surface of a lake. Introductions were made, hands were shaken, and Roy's impression of the girl was of a true second-in-command – strong, capable and fiercely loyal.

"And may I re-introduce Heymans Breda?" Winry announced as the stocky man stepped out in his turn.

Roy felt the two men beside him jerk in shock. He felt his jaw hang slack, knew his eyes were round as a pair of coins...but he couldn't do anything except stare.

Breda had long ago been written off as dead. Yet here he was, standing right in front of them, grinning madly.

"Been a while," was all Breda said, swallowing past the lump of emotion in his throat.

"Been a _very_ long while," Fuery managed, apparently struggling valiantly to keep his dignity.

Roy made a small, unintelligible noise, seemingly of disbelief. Armstrong, who was not quite as constrained as his two companions, swept the prodigal Lieutenant up into a bone-snapping hug.

"Glad to see someone hasn't changed," Winry chuckled.

But she supposed it made sense – that Roy, Riza, Fuery, Breda, Armstrong and all the others had changed so little. They had lived through a war before and however they coped with it back then was the way they coped now.

"And I think you've already met Scar and Envy," Winry finished as the final members of her group disembarked.

She could see the three military men stiffen. The very air seemed to crackle with electric tension, like the sky before a lightning strike.

"You have...interesting...choice in allies," Roy finally managed. "Are you sure-?"

"Don't worry about them," Winry cut in, "They answer to me if they mess with any of you." There was a pause, and the lines of Winry's face could have been carved from stone as her voice lowered, turning deadly serious, "And you answer to me if you mess with them."

"Understood," Roy said, squashing the urge to salute in reflex to the hard, commanding voice.

Winry's voice changed in the space of a breath, from the growl of a battle-hardened leader to the innocent, laughing tone of a young woman who had only just passed twenty-one. "Now, while I'm all for moving the negotiations forward, I really need some sleep. Do you have rooms for us or something?"

"We do," Roy nodded, gesturing for Winry to step into Central's Dissident headquarters. It seemed as though he'd have to be the one to show her around – at least until Fuery and Armstrong recovered from the double-shock of seeing a long-lost friend and two sworn enemies following the slight woman in front of him.

But as soon as Winry was settled, he was going to talk with Breda and figure out just what was going on here.

**oooooooo**

"You wanted to see me?" Breda said, coasting into what was normally used as a briefing room.

"Is Winry sleeping?" Ed couldn't help asking.

Breda nodded, "Thanks for the rooms, Major General, the Commander really needs to get some shut-eye. I've never seen her so beat – not that you could tell."

Roy was surprised by the note of true respect in Breda's voice when he referred to the Commander, a woman almost fifteen years his junior.

"So, what's up?" Breda asked, looking at the faces arrayed around him. Armstrong, Fuery, Roy and Riza were sitting in chairs, while Ed and Al stood near the window.

"We...have some concerns about who Winry chose to bring with her," Riza began, "Especially considering..."

"You're worried about how Scar and Envy will deal with being surrounded by people they once called their enemies," Breda supplied.

"It can't be denied that both were actively involved in attacks on the military, before the civil war," Armstrong said gruffly. "Scar, in particular, was on a crusade to wipe out State Alchemists."

Breda nodded. "I know. And no one really knows how Envy survived when Father and the rest of the homunculi were killed."

Ed, having been in the North, had not been involved in the battle that finally wiped his most implacable enemies from the face of the earth. But there were rumours a man calling himself Hohenheim had been involved...

"Well, Winry probably knows," Breda amended, "If Envy told anyone, it would be her."

"That's something else we're finding hard to grasp," Roy said, "Why would Scar and Envy follow someone like Winry? It makes no sense."

"Before we left, Winry said they'd be no problem, because they knew she'd deal with them," Riza murmured, shaking her head in disbelief. "I admit I thought they wouldn't care about that. But they seem...genuinely attached to her."

"But not romantically though," Al chimed in. "It's something...different. The bond is there, but it's more...spiritual...than anything else."

"You just don't get it," Breda sighed, shaking his head. "Scar, Envy, Paninya, me...we all follow the Commander. Every one of us is behind her one hundred percent. Scar and Envy trust her...as much as they trust anyone. And she reciprocates. They won't attack or sabotage or do anything along those lines – not because she told them not to, though that is part of it, but because to do so would be letting her down."

"But..." Fuery started.

Breda grinned, looking at his younger friend as though he could read his mind. "How can Winry inspire that kind of devotion?" He shrugged. "I can't really explain. But if you'd seen her during the war, you'd understand. She radiates this calm, compassionate assurance; the sort of aura that makes you follow her anywhere."

The large man paused for a moment, his eyes distant. "She got me out of that prison camp, you know? Me, and everyone else that was held there. The Resistance charged in and the guards fought back, some prisoners tried to escape, some tried to fight the guards as well...it was chaos, utter chaos. And Winry was there, in the thick of it, calm and collected – cool as ice – shouting out orders to bring everyone back under control. Then when the guards had been killed, she took every one of us back to Rush Valley, got us medical treatment, proper food, places to sleep. She didn't even eat until she'd gotten every one of us settled."

The door opened, interrupting Breda's story and making everyone jump. Winry strode confidently in.

"What are you doing here?" Fuery asked, before he could stop himself.

Winry turned cool eyes and an even cooler voice on him as she spoke, "The others informed me you had requested Breda's presence. Since you couldn't possibly have anything to say to him that you wouldn't say to his Commander's face, I decided to join you."

Fuery felt a shiver run up his spine. The look in her eyes was the look of a leader questioned, a leader whose ability was beyond reproach among those who followed her.

"So, anyway, if I guess correctly, you were discussing my current companions' questionable loyalties?" Winry supplied.

Her voice was cheerful, but there was a hard edge to it.

"We were merely-" Armstrong started.

But Winry interrupted, speaking directly to Roy, the commanding officer. "Look, I don't care what you think about my people, or my methods, or my choice of recruits. I'm on your turf here, I will show you respect, _and you in turn will respect me_."

The very air seemed to freeze in fear for a moment, as though even inanimate atmosphere was cowed by a voice like that. But Winry continued as though the moment hadn't happened, "Scar and Envy...I don't care what you say they've done, what you tell me about their unreliability or their turncoat tendencies or whatever else you try to dredge up. I trust them. Enough to know that they'll split before they snap. If it gets too much for them...they'll leave. They know the door is open and they'll walk through it if they need to."

"Forgive me for saying," Riza began hesitantly, still slightly shaken by the tone Winry's voice had taken for those few seconds. "But we were just concerned...it just seems so...incomprehensible...for either Scar or Envy to pledge their loyalty to anyone..."

Winry laughed. "Envy actually isn't as much of a mystery as you might think. You know that big battle, the one that wiped out the rest of the homunculi and Father?"

Everyone nodded.

"Well, something happened to Envy's Philosopher's Stone during that battle. I'm no alchemist, so I don't know the details of what actually happened, all I can tell you is the results. And the results are these...Envy can't really be called a homunculus anymore."

"What?" Ed exploded, but Winry shot him a look so reminiscent of the traditional _'you have trashed my automail again and if you try to say one more word in your defense I will make you nothing but a tiny blonde memory'_ glare that his mouth snapped shut on reflex.

"I mean," the blonde Commander continued, "He can't change shape anymore – he's stuck in that form. He's still incredibly strong and amazingly fast but he doesn't regenerate as quickly as he used to...he can recover from most blows, but...well, it's my opinion that a fatal one – instead of forcing him to regenerate around his Philosopher's Stone – will actually kill him. And he has the same needs a human does now; eating, sleeping, that kind of thing."

It seemed mind-boggling to Ed. If Envy was no longer a homunculus, then what was he? But he supposed that was why Winry had practically ordered him to go to sleep last night.

"So why does he follow you?" Al asked.

"We've met him before," Ed elaborated, "And he was a-"

"Jerk!" Al cut in, before his brother could say something ruder.

"Well, that part's a bit dicey," Winry admitted. "It took me a while to figure things out, but...has anyone wondered why the homunculi took Father's orders so complacently? And why they cooperated with each other when some of them seem to despise the others?"

Winry paused, gathering her thoughts. "The way I figure, when Father made the homunculi, he made them with the mentality of a wolf-pack. He's the 'alpha', the strongest, so they follow him without question. And the others are their 'pack-mates', so to speak, so they work with them, despite any differences of opinion they may have. I mean, I know Greed struck out on his own, but he was an exception."

"So when he came across you...those instincts just...transferred to you?" Al hazarded, wondering how Winry knew about the first Greed. But then, Envy had probably told her.

"Not quite. After the battle, Envy was in pretty bad shape. Wasn't sure what to do with himself without his 'pack'. Eventually, he wandered into Rush Valley. I was on patrol, and I thought he was an enemy scout. We got into a fight. And when I managed to beat him...I somehow replaced Father at the top of the food chain. In Envy's mind, I'm the 'alpha' now, and the rest of the Resistance is his 'pack'. We give him focus, we give him purpose, we give him a reason to live. He's not about to throw that away."

"And Scar?" Roy asked, remembering the man he'd confronted in a rainy street so many years ago. That didn't seem like a man who would take anyone's commands.

"Scar?" Winry shrugged. "Who really knows with that guy? One of my people from the prison camps, Travis Burns, used to be a State Alchemist, and while we were scouting some new territory, Scar attacked us. I told Travis to run back to headquarters and get back-up while I kept him occupied."

Ed was sure his jaw had disengaged. He'd fought against Scar himself, and knew it was no simple task. He could practically feel everyone's astonishment, a shift in the currents of air in the room as everyone inhaled sharply in surprise.

"You kept Scar occupied?" Al echoed faintly.

Winry nodded calmly, as though this was nothing special. "Took a lot out of me, too. Eventually, I managed to pin him-"

More noises of shock. Anyone who had seen Scar and Winry's relative size could understand how unbelievable it was for Winry to have _pinned_ him.

"-And then I yelled at him." Winry shook her head, as though amazed at her own daring. "Can you believe it? God knows what I was thinking...but I yelled about how we were all in the same boat now, and he should be struggling against the H-Faction instead of hunting down those alchemists who were trying to do some good. Or something like that. Adrenaline kinda hazes the memory. But whatever I said, it must have had a real impact, because he came back to headquarters with me. And the rest, as they say, is history. But he's vowed himself to my cause – and whatever his faults, he's a man with honour; he won't go back on his word."

Winry looked around the room slowly, taking care to meet each person's eyes. "Do you understand what I'm saying? They've killed for me. I've killed for them. That's not a bond you just toss aside."

Ed flinched. Logically, he knew that as a Commander of an army in a war zone, Winry would have killed. But to hear her say it so baldly, so plainly...

"So what you're saying," Roy said slowly, "Is that while Scar and Envy will never follow us, they will follow you, correct?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying. Because they respect me in a way that they will never respect you." Winry suddenly raised her voice, "And now that this discussion is finished, you guys outside needn't bother eavesdropping."

Everyone started, but Winry was proved correct when the door opened to admit Scar and Envy. Scar looking impassive, as usual, and Envy looking almost...embarrassed?

"We didn't mean to, boss," Envy tried.

Winry huffed a sigh. "Yes, you did. I know you could care less about what they think-" she gestured to the others around her "-so why did you follow me?"

"To protect you," Scar stated, as if it were obvious.

The expression on Winry's face was one of weary fondness – as though she had heard this many times. "Scar...I know these people. I trust them. They're not going to kill me."

"A warrior can never be sure where the enemy lurks. Kick an anthill over, and many still hide in the sand."

"Does what you say make any sense to you at all? Or do you just throw some words together and hope it makes you sound deep and philosophical?"

Again, the twitch at the side of Scar's mouth, as though he were hiding a smile.

"It doesn't really matter anyway," Winry shook her head. "I've said my piece. You can stay to say yours if you want, but I'm going back to bed."

She walked straight out without further comment.

Ed half-expected Scar and Envy to follow her, but at the same time he was not really surprised when they remained. Their presence made him feel slightly claustrophobic; the instinctive prickle of fear he felt with them had been, until now, always soothed by Winry's presence. As though without Winry to rein them in, there was nothing to stop them abandoning their vows and initiating wholesale slaughter.

A foolish thought, he knew, but fear was instinctual and did not listen to reason.

"We're not going to turn on the boss," Envy said bluntly.

"Why should we believe you," Ed shot back, anger flaring. "Does she even know what you're responsible for? What you've done?"

"Vharla is fully aware of all our past actions...and their consequences," Scar said softly.

"Vharla?" Fuery murmured.

"An Ishbalan word," Scar explained. "The title given to a warrior who assumes leadership in times of war or hardship."

"If Winry is fully aware of everything you've done...what could have possible motivated her to offer you a place in the Resistance, instead of killing you?" Riza asked.

Envy shrugged. "Who knows why the boss does what she does? You'll have to ask her. But this I do know," he said, his voice suddenly turning serious. "When I met her, I was practically dead on my feet. Didn't understand what I had to do to keep a mostly-human body functioning...so when she took me in, she was the one who'd remind me to eat, to drink, to sleep...she was the one who practically put me back together. She had more reason to see me dead than keep me alive, but keep me alive was what she did. More than once."

Envy's jaw clenched slightly, his eyes unreadable. "I don't care what you say I've done or what you think I'm going to do, I'm not going to turn on the boss."

Then he left. No words of dismissal or farewell, he just walked out.

Scar's lips twitched once more. "Vharla has a way of gaining absolute loyalty, even if she doesn't ask for it."

"What's your story?" Roy's voice was low, but his eyes were almost accusing. "Why do you follow her?"

Scar's eyes flashed. "I follow her because she is what a leader should be. A leader who is the first to rise in the morning and the last to go to sleep at night. A leader who is the first to work and the last to eat. A leader who cares less for her plans and visions than for the people in them."

"She saved your life, too," Al realised.

"There is no man, woman or child in the Resistance whose life Vharla hasn't saved in one form or another," Scar said flatly. "But yes, she saved my life. There was a surprise attack by the H-Faction and I sustained serious injuries. I told Vharla to leave me to die. She refused. She pulled me to my feet and dragged me behind an outcropping of rocks. The last thing I remember is her shouting for help. When I awoke I was on a stretcher, being conveyed back to Resistance's medical facility. Vharla was on a stretcher beside me, badly injured...and her hand was still fisted in my shirt."

Scar was silent for several moments. "I am a warrior...a warrior with honour. I have pledged myself to her and her cause, and I shall not go back on my word."

Then he was gone. Breda, who had been silent until this point, laughed, shook his head and followed his comrade.

Ed stared after them, struck mute with shock.

**oooooooo**

_AN: As per usual, LaughingAstarael was my wonderful beta._


	5. Whispers In The Night

**Chapter 5**

**Whispers In The Night**

Winry slept through the day and most of the night. Ed was not so fortunate. The discussion from earlier kept turning over and over in his mind, leaving him restless and edgy. Even the peaceful darkness of the night did little to ease him.

Eventually, two hours after he slipped between the sheets of his bed, Ed accepted he wasn't going to sleep any time soon. Careful not to wake Al, he slipped into the corridor, with some idea that a walk might clear his head.

But then he saw Scar in the corridor, apparently standing guard outside the door to the room holding the members of the Resistance.

"Still 'protecting' her?" Ed asked. He didn't know why he didn't just walk past – maybe he just wanted to try to connect with this man he'd always seen as just another enemy, this man who had suddenly become such a part of Winry's world.

Scar nodded. "She is the Resistance Commander. As long as the H-Faction exists, there will be assassins."

"Assassins?" Ed realised he hadn't thought of that. But as the Commander, of course Winry would be a target.

Scar stared levelly at Ed, as though trying to decide something. Ed shifted his weight, uncomfortable under the Ishbalan's scrutiny. He waited a few moments, trying to determine if the man would speak again. When it seemed he wouldn't, Ed started to turn away.

But then Scar finally spoke, in a low, quiet voice as though trying not to wake the people in the room.

"She's not as strong as she seems."

Ed whipped around. The shadowed light in Scar's eyes suggested he was letting Ed into his confidence – telling him a secret few knew.

Ed, however, was unable to manage anything besides an ineloquent, "What?"

"Vharla is a leader at heart...and she is one of the best," Scar continued quietly. "But she has been forced to shoulder those responsibilities before her wounds healed."

"Wounds?"

"They have not been allowed to heal." This time, there was a warning note in Scar's voice. "She buried them before they could truly be buried. She has been stone for far too long. But those wounds fester; like a plant's seed, spreading its roots throughout the rock, forcing the stone to crack. At first, the cracks are tiny, minuscule, barely noticeable...but they will widen. The seed must be rooted out before the stone crumbles entirely."

Ed reflected that was probably the most words Scar had ever said to him at any one time. But it was like sand through a sieve – the words registered, but the actual weight to them, their meaning, was elusive.

"What are you saying?"

Scar's eyes pinned him to the spot. "Vharla has been through more than you think...more than any of us can possibly imagine."

Ed opened his mouth, hardly certain of what he was going to say, but he was cut off when the door opened behind Scar. A small head peered around the jamb, covered with tousled blonde hair.

"What's going on?" Winry asked, and Ed noticed she was holding a sharp, wickedly curved blade. "I heard voices."

"Nothing to be concerned about, Vharla," Scar said.

Winry looked from the Ishbalan, to Ed and back again. "Scar," she began, her tone sharp as glass, "What I said to Envy? That applies to you, too."

Scar nodded. "Understood, Vharla."

"How long have you been 'on watch', so to speak?"

"Only six hours."

"Six...?" Winry sounded as though she wasn't sure whether to laugh at Scar or hit him. "You idiot! Watches are no more than four hours at a time! If you're so convinced that someone's going to assassinate me, at least switch the watches on occasion!"

Winry sighed, shook her head, and turned back into the darkened room. Light spilled in from the corridor, and as it pierced the gloom Ed could vaguely make out the shapes of people tangled in blankets, sprawled on mattresses on the floor.

"At least let me wake Breda or Pan," Winry muttered as she stepped back inside. "And they can take over for a while."

Her soft words faded away as the darkness within the room swallowed her. But Ed barely paid attention to the rustling and shifting sounds drifting into the corridor – he was more intrigued by something Winry had said...

"What did she mean by, 'what she said to Envy'?"

Scar regarded him levelly. It occurred to Ed that Scar probably said far more with his eyes than with his words, if you could only understand it. He had a feeling Winry was one of the few who had learned the language.

"Before we left, Vharla warned Envy," Scar spoke at last. "It was nothing out of the ordinary. She just told him that if he 'messed with you', she'd kill him."

Ed still couldn't believe how casually the word 'kill' dropped from the lips of Winry and everyone under her command.

The door opened, and Winry emerged once more. She touched Scar on the shoulder, and flicked her head in the direction of the darkened room.

"You. Bed. Now."

Ed almost smiled at the image of Winry ordering Scar to go to bed like a mother with a misbehaving toddler.

Scar's crimson eyes narrowed. "Who will stand watch?"

"I will," Winry sighed, "Just to humour you."

"You did not wake any of the others?"

The blonde woman shook her head. "I didn't have the heart to – they looked so peaceful. And this is the first real chance they've had to rest since...Gods knows how long. And before you say something about me needing rest just as much as them," Winry cut Scar off as he opened his mouth again. "I have slept all through the day, and am now feeling very rested, thank you. Although," she mused. "This is probably really screwing up my internal clock."

Scar hesitated, and Winry gave him a glare that could crack concrete. "Bed. _Now_."

Scar acquiesced without a murmur, but Ed saw the tell-tale twitch at the side of his mouth that said he was more amused by Winry's concern for him than anything else.

Winry leaned against the wall and blew a stray lock of hair out of her face. She had discarded the headband, and she ran her fingers though the tangled strands to try and restore some order to them. At first glance, she looked relaxed, at ease, even peaceful. Only when Ed looked closer did he notice the way her hand rested close to the gun and knife at her waist, the way her weight was on the balls of her feet so she could move hard and fast in an instant if she needed to.

As though sensing his gaze, Winry's eyes met Ed's. "So, Ed, what are you doing up at this hour?"

"Couldn't sleep," he confessed.

Winry smiled, but it wasn't the smile Ed was used to. It was still cheerful, still bright and sunny, still _Winry_...but there was something guarded about it at the same time. Cautious and not as innocent as it used to be.

"So...what have you been doing with yourself these past years?" Winry prompted. "Besides restoring Al, I mean."

"Not much," Ed confessed. "We were sent to guard this guy up in the North. We didn't really see much fighting."

Some part of him found it strange to be telling Winry this. Winry, from whom he had tried to hide every wound, from whom he had tried to keep every dirty secret about his mission. But at the same time, it seemed natural to be telling her this now – perhaps because she'd been through so much on her own, without he or Al to help her, that he owed her this honesty now.

And somewhere, in the back of his mind, Scar's words rang clear. _"Vharla has been through more than you think...more than any of us can possibly imagine."_

"If you didn't see much fighting, then how did you get that scar?" Winry asked, gesturing at the line of darkened flesh on his neck.

Ed found himself thinking that, before the war, Winry wouldn't have hesitated to touch the object of their discussion. Now, she seemed reluctant to encroach upon his personal space without permission. Winry's near-complete lack of social boundaries when it came to him and his automail had been the cause of more than one argument, but now that she had apparently finally learned to be tactful with him, he found himself wishing she would show some of her old confidence, her old ease with him.

"We ran into an Angel of Death," Ed admitted.

It might have been his imagination, but he could have sworn that for a second, Winry went very stiff. "Oh? I heard they were almost impossible to defeat."

"Pretty much. We needed a whole squad, plus me and Al just to take down one." Ed suppressed a shiver, remembering the dying man's eyes suddenly clearing as the alchemical brainwashing he had been subjected to was broken. Freed, only to die in the next instant.

"I hate to think what it would have been like here in Central," Ed continued, "With seventeen – well, sixteen after the one that attacked us was killed – Angels running around."

"They sent an entire battalion of alchemists in to raze them to the ground from a distance, didn't they?" Winry said quietly.

Ed nodded, feeling slightly uncomfortable. "Yeah. There was just no other way to stop them."

There were several seconds of silence as each pondered the fate of those men and women forced into service for the H-Faction. Feeling the heavy mood settle in the corridor like a cloak, Ed tried to dispel the gloom with a more light-hearted comment.

"Hey, did you hear the rumours? About there being an eighteenth Angel of Death?"

Ed expected Winry to express surprise, or at least curiosity. But instead, she sucked in a harsh breath, and the look he glimpsed in her eyes startled him. Fear...apprehension?

"Winry?"

She looked up at him again, but this time her smile seemed forced. "Sorry, I wasn't quite paying attention. What were you saying about an eighteenth Angel of Death?"

Ed knew she had heard every word, and couldn't figure out why she would lie about something like that. But he let it slide. "Just some rumours the brass have been dealing with. Something about eighteen Angels of Death being trained in the H-Faction's facility and only seventeen accounted for. I don't put much stock by it, though. I mean, if an Angel of Death was still around, surely there would be some signs, right? Squads of men mysteriously disappearing, unexplained assassinations...that kind of thing?"

"I guess you're right," Winry shrugged. But she still seemed uncomfortable – her right hand was nervously fiddling with the cloth that covered her left forearm.

Then she turned and there was a strange light in her eyes. "It's strange, isn't it? That it's finally over. The war...your quest...we thought these things would consume our lives, and now...they're over. Just like that."

Ed could admit that it did, indeed, feel strange. For most of his life, he'd been focused avidly on a single goal, to the exclusion of all else. First, bringing his mother back, then restoring Al's body, then there was the war...

And now...now all that was ahead of him was the rest of his life. Empty of impossible, life-consuming quests, empty of everything save what _he_ wanted to do with it. He knew how keenly he'd desired such a life, but it came as a surprise to him how unprepared he was for it. He'd been so driven for so long...what if he couldn't live normally after so many years of that?

He wondered if Winry feared the same thing. After five years of leading an army, could she go back to being just a mechanic? And before Ed's brain could catch up with his mouth, he found himself blurting out that very question.

"Do you think you can go back?"

Winry looked at him in confusion. "Go back to what?"

"Back to...to living a normal life," Ed clarified. "Before the war, before...everything. Do you think you can go back?"

There was a pause.

"There's no _normal_ life, Ed," Winry said softly. "There's just life. And no, I don't think I can ever go back. Can you?"

"I don't think so," he admitted, then found himself asking, "What do you think you're going to do when everything's over?"

Winry's eyes grew distant, and she seemed to be considering his question. "I really haven't thought about it – there's so many things still left to be done. We still need to erase the last remnants of the H-Faction, though these negotiations should help us with that. Once the Resistance and the Dissidents start cooperating, H-Faction won't stand a chance."

She exhaled sharply. "And another reason I need these negotiations to go through is so my people can be looked after. When I disband the Resistance, I want to be sure everyone has somewhere to go – that I won't just be abandoning them to the whims of fate, you know?"

Ed found he couldn't be surprised at that. Winry seemed to have some sort of strange instinct that compelled her to take care of everyone around her.

"And after that..." Winry shrugged. "I'd like to go back to being an automail mechanic...if I can."

"You still want to be a mechanic?"

"Of course, Ed," Winry chided, looking at him as though he were crazy for even suggesting her devotion to machines would ever waver. "Being Commander...that was what I _had_ to do. But automail is my passion – it's what I _want_ to do."

"Some things never change," Ed chuckled, then suddenly remembered something. "But why did you say 'if I can'?"

Winry bit her lip and looked down at her hands. "Do you remember what you said to me five years ago? When I was going to shoot Scar?"

She hadn't really thought he would remember, certain it was just another battle in his long list of fights, and so was surprised when he nodded.

"You really remember?"

"I thought he was going to kill you, Winry," Ed snapped. "That kind of terror you don't just forget."

His very bones shuddered with the remembrance of the fear he'd felt that day. It was a long time ago, but the memory was still fresh, with the clarity only sheer terror and rage could bring. For the first time in his life, he'd been truly prepared, even willing, to kill another human being.

All because that human being had threatened Winry. Ed remembered it as a very sobering realisation of just how much his mechanic had come to mean to him.

"I think the only thing that ever scared me _that_ much was when Al and I tried to revive Mum," Ed confessed.

For a moment, Winry's breath caught. The Ed of five years ago would never have admitted such a thing to her. She resisted the urge to hug him and steered the conversation back on track.

"Well, then you remember what you told me when you took the gun off me."

_'Your hands are not those that kill people...they're hands that let people live.'_

"I remember," Ed said hoarsely.

"I thought about that later," Winry admitted. "When you think about it, that's actually a good description of automail mechanics in general. Their hands heal, they don't kill." Winry's hands knotted into fists. "And that's just it. I've killed. Dozens of people...maybe even hundreds. Thousands if you take into account all those who were killed by my people, on my orders."

Ed didn't so much as flinch. He took her hands in his, gently easing her fists open, loosening the tense muscles. He was surprised she allowed him to do so – he'd seen firsthand how she seemed to consider any physical contact a potential threat – but after an initial shiver when he touched her, she didn't react.

"Winry..." he began, "Why did you become the Commander of the Rush Valley Resistance? Why did you start the Resistance in the first place?"

"I..."

"It wasn't to kill people, was it?"

Winry bit her lip, and shook her head. "Everything was going to hell in a handbasket. The H-Faction was taking over everywhere, and the Dissidents couldn't fight them alone. Someone needed to stand up for the people the H-Faction was oppressing. Someone needed to try and make things right again. And since no one else was going to..."

She trailed off, shrugging helplessly. As though what she'd done was the natural course of action to follow. As though anyone else would have done what she did.

Winry didn't seem to realise that was exactly what made her so special. That inherent compassion that made – in her view, at least – the right choice the only choice. No matter how difficult.

"Don't you see, Winry?" Ed asked gently, still cradling her hands in his. "You didn't kill out of a desire to, or out of vengeance or anything so selfish. You killed to protect those that depended on you. You killed in your effort to make the world a better place...in your effort to make things right again."

He knew it was true. Winry had held a gun on Scar, the man who had killed her parents...and found herself unable to pull the trigger. Because she couldn't kill selfishly – the only way she could bring herself to take a life was in the name of the greater good.

It was an unorthodox kind of healing, a brutal and bloody type of healing...but it was healing nonetheless.

"But that doesn't condone it!" Winry burst out. "So what if my intentions were good and noble and righteous? I still killed – my motives don't matter!"

"That's where you're wrong. Your motives are probably the only things that _do_ matter," Ed went on, trying to explain what he knew in his heart. "Winry...everyone killed. We did, the Resistance did, the H-Faction did...but what separates us from them is the _reason_ we killed."

Winry huffed a small, unintelligible sound, but she didn't so sad anymore, so Ed decided that was progress. Then she laughed, a sudden, short burst, like a machine gun's bullets.

"What's so funny?"

"Just that I didn't really understand what you said, but it made me feel better anyway," she said, still chuckling. "Taking lessons from Scar behind my back?"

The mention of the Ishbalan brought another nasty thought to the forefront of Ed's mind. Emboldened by their easy conversation, he voiced it.

"How can you trust Scar and Envy, when you know what they've done? Have you forgiven them, or something?"

Winry's eyes went dark, her muscles tightened under her skin, and Ed cursed himself for bringing it up.

"'Forgiven' isn't really the right word," she said at last. "I've let it be. Yes, Scar killed my parents, but he was half-crazy with grief at the time and not truly aware of what he was doing. Yes, Envy started the Ishbalan war, but that was on the orders of his 'alpha wolf', when he was still a homunculus without true human emotions. I don't forgive them, but I've decided to let it go. It's in the past...so I leave it in the past."

"And now...?" Ed prompted tentatively.

"And now...now they're my people," Winry said simply. "Now that Scar has actually fought beside those who were once part of the military, I think he's realising that not all of them are bad people. His crusade to wipe out all State Alchemists...might not be his crusade anymore. He's hard to read, but after this war...I don't think he could ever go back to that."

She thinned her lips, mulling it over for a few moments before speaking again. "And I almost feel sorry for Envy, you know? Homunculi don't have the same kinds of emotions that humans have, and since he's more human than homunculus these days...he's suddenly got a whole boatload of these feelings he's never felt before and doesn't know how to deal with."

"So what you're saying is...?"

"Father created the homunculi, and he created Envy himself very specifically. Even down to his emotions. Do you get it? Envy couldn't feel regret, or remorse, or compassion, or anything along those lines...because he was what Father had made him to be."

In spite of himself, Ed felt a flash of pity. And he began to understand what Winry was saying; she couldn't forgive Envy...but she wasn't going to condemn him either.

Winry shook her head slightly, only barely making her short locks of hair swish over her shoulders. "You don't need to tell me how screwed up it is, Ed, to rely on two people like that. To entrust my life to killers. I know how screwed up it sounds, to forge a bond with the two people in the world who are most accountable for my parent's and hundreds of other deaths."

Her laugh was slightly bitter. "But if I hadn't done that, if I hadn't taken a chance with them...none of us would be here now. Yes, they owe me their lives...but I also owe them mine. Most of the people in the Resistance owe them their lives, because that's how things worked. You did some screwed up things, crazy things, things you wouldn't ever have dreamed of doing otherwise...but because you did them, you stayed alive."

Ed couldn't think of anything to say. What _could_ he say, after that? But he was spared from replying when Winry sighed again, fiddling with a scrap of cloth in her pocket that Ed recognised as her headband. She pulled it out and tied it around her head, pulling the strands of her fringe away from her face, the scar standing in stark relief against her otherwise unmarked features.

Winry blinked several times and seemed to physically pull herself from the contemplative mood they had both sunk into. "Hey, Ed, I'm hungry – when does the kitchen open?"

**oooooooo**

_AN: LaughingAstarael is, as always, my magnificent beta._


	6. Deadly Dance

**Chapter 6**

**Deadly Dance**

Winry and Roy stepped out of the negotiations room after the rest of the military brass, both yawning and stretching. Roy linked his fingers and stretched his arms out in front of him, sighing in relief when the tendons finally relaxed, while Winry arched her back like a cat and moaned gratefully as her spine popped. Her eyes landed on the small gathering in the corridor – Scar, Envy, Ed, Al, and Riza – and she smiled.

"Hard going, boss?" Envy asked from where he leaned against the wall.

Ed and Al had soon learned that Scar and Envy were like Winry's personal shadows. While Breda and Paninya might be willing to let their Commander wander about the headquarters at her leisure, it was rare to see Winry without her two self-appointed bodyguards. What was more bewildering was that Winry showed no true surprise at this behaviour, but behaved as though it was normal, as though it was to be expected.

Winry was dressed comfortably but conservatively, and still wore her black headband with the bisected circle of the Resistance stitched in white. The two trailing ends of the cloth tangled with her hair as she shook the thick locks out, as though to clear her head.

"Very hard going," she replied, grinning at Envy. "The top Dissidents still aren't convinced I'm not going to storm Central with my rabid army at my heels, baying for their blood. Kinda hard to ask for resources and assistance when you're facing that attitude."

"Did you try-" Paninya started, but Winry cut her off.

"Yes, Pan, I tried to explain that we just wanted said resources and assistance so I could make sure my people were provided for when we disbanded. They didn't look convinced. May take a few days and a couple of stirring speeches on my part before we get anything from them."

Winry paused, casting a glance about her. "Anyone know where Breda is?"

"I think he and Fuery went to a bar somewhere," Ed supplied.

"Ah," Winry nodded. "Drink the booze, talk of the past, mourn the lost comrades and exchange the funny and heroic war stories. I know it well."

"Did you need him for something?" Al asked.

"Nothing important. I'll leave him re-bond with his buddy."

"Sir?" Riza addressed Roy, a small folder tucked under her arm.

"Paperwork?" the Major General guessed, his face the picture of misery.

"I'm afraid so, sir."

"When my retirement day finally comes, I will be building the biggest bonfire known to man," Roy vowed, but followed the Lieutenant Colonel all the same.

Winry watched them go, and couldn't help noting that Riza's rise in the ranks probably meant she didn't have to remain as the Major General's right hand woman. So did that mean she stayed because she _wanted_ to?

"Well," Paninya said, clapping her hands together. "Since our poor Commander has been forced to spend all morning in a stuffy room with even stuffier diplomats, any suggestions on what we can do to show her a good time?"

"I can show her a good time," Envy purred, mock-growling at her.

Winry glared at him. "Envy, make that noise at me again and what I'll do to your tongue will make the Gordian Knot seem like a simple velcro strap."(1)

Envy grinned unrepentantly but made no further comment.

"Now," Winry continued, in a far more cheerful voice, "I believe someone mentioned something about fun?"

**oooooooo**

Roy resisted the urge to snap his fingers and burn the pile of papers in front of him to small flecks of unobtrusive ash.

'_Patience, Roy, patience. Wait until you're retired...'_

Riza's eyes lifted from her desk and shot towards his with a speed that left him slightly disconcerted. He was sure he hadn't said that aloud...she couldn't read his mind, could she? Somehow, it wouldn't surprise him.

Black Hayate whined at her feet, a soft plea for attention, and Riza scratched his ears obligingly. Roy had a moment to reflect on the day the dog had first came into headquarters, taken in by a soft-hearted Fuery, and he couldn't help a small smile as he remembered everyone's surprise when Riza offered the dog a home.

He'd known she'd do something like that from the first, though. Riza was just like that.

Roy watched the black and white dog, curled up on the floor at Riza's feet, eyes closed in contentment. He'd looked after Black Hayate after Riza had been captured, and he remembered how the dog would keep him up into the small hours of the morning with his heart-wrenching howls as he lamented the loss of the woman who had cared for him. While Roy had grumbled and yelled at Hayate for it, some part of him hadn't really minded.

After all, how could he be angry at the dog for doing what he could not? When Riza had vanished, on more than one occasion he'd felt like screaming to the heavens in sheer grief and despair, so to hear Black Hayate do it...was somehow soothing.

Roy sighed and shoved his chair back from his desk. He needed the reference sheets for the new supply train, and he was sure he'd seen it in that filing cabinet somewhere...

He was flipping through the neatly-ordered files (Riza's handiwork, he was sure) when a gentle, calloused hand wrapped around his wrist, pulling his arm away.

Roy froze, every muscle locking in a mixture of astonishment and joy. Riza had touched him. Of her own free will, she had reached out and laid her hand on his wrist. For a moment, he didn't move, basking in the simple contact that, while it seemed so little, meant so much.

"Sir, I think the files you're looking for are here," Riza said, guiding his attention to a small stack of folders on top of the cabinet.

"Riza...are you sure you can't read my mind?"

She gave him a very strange look as she handed him the files. He wasn't sure why...until he replayed their conversation and realised he had called her by her first name. Feeling inexplicably embarrassed, as though he had just crossed some forbidden frontier, his eyes went to the window, casting about desperately for something to distract them both from the awkward moment.

As though a higher power had heard his not-quite-prayers – not that he believed in God – Roy's eyes landed on the small group in the courtyard.

"What are they doing?" he asked, drawing Riza's attention to the ground below, where Winry and Paninya circled each other while the others watched.

Riza blinked. "I think they're sparring, sir."

**oooooooo**

There wasn't much to do for fun in Central, as most of the city was still in the process of being rebuilt. So Winry had suggested sparring. While not quite a recreational activity, it was still a good way to exercise muscles stiff from sitting down for most of the day.

Ed and Al stared at Winry in blatant fascination. Every glance, every movement, every perfectly controlled ripple of muscle and tendon spoke of skill and training. Ed couldn't help wondering when she'd picked these particular skills up. Envy and Scar slouched in the shade, watching the proceedings with faint looks of amusement, as though this was a scene they were well-used to and found quite entertaining.

Paninya feinted, searching for an opening, but Winry wasn't fooled. She held her position, waiting until she could see the spark in the darker girl's eyes, the way her muscles tightened just that hair more that showed she was following through this time.

Winry spun to the side, delivering a light roundhouse kick to Paninya's back as she flew past. The dark-skinned girl whirled, trying to land a blow on the Commander, but Winry suddenly just wasn't there. She had ducked and lunged forward, coming up under Paninya's guard with blinding speed. Paninya tried to step back, to put enough distance between them to swing at the small blonde, but Winry was too fast. The taller girl found her automail hand twisted up behind her back, Winry's other arm laid across her throat, resting just against the larynx, so that the slightest pressure could throttle her.

But it wasn't the speed and ease of the attacks that threw Ed off. It was Winry's grace. She moved so naturally, so fluidly...it almost looked like she was dancing.

"How did I beat you?" Winry asked, releasing her friend. It was then Ed and Al realised that Winry was also acting as a teacher...after all, didn't Breda say most of the people in the Resistance had been trained by her?

"By being freakishly fast?" Paninya tried, then at Winry's stern look re-played the brief fight in her head. "Umm...I rushed you too slowly?"

"Exactly!" Winry beamed, "You were too easy to read. Too many feints and too much time to prepare for the rush. Do you want to try again?"

"Can't you torture someone else?" Paninya whined. "Scar? Envy?"

Winry turned to the two men in the shade, raising her eyebrows in silent invitation.

"No way, boss" Envy said flatly. "One butt-kicking is enough for us."

Ed supposed they were referring to their first meetings with Winry – before they joined the Rush Valley Resistance – both having met defeat after exhausting tussles.

"Wimps," Paninya hissed, then addressing Winry, "How about Ed or Al?"

Winry turned to the brothers in question, her hand held out invitingly.

Ed shifted his weight, the only sign he was unsettled. He could admit that the fighter within him was curious – how did Winry measure up against him? But the rest of him was busy reminding himself that this was _Winry_ in front of him, and the last thing he ever wanted to do was hurt her...

"We'll give it a try," Al spoke up, "Right, brother?"

Why was it that whenever Al volunteered for something, he felt compelled to follow suit?

"Sure," Ed relented. "Who's up first?"

Winry shrugged. "I'll take on both of you at once, if you like."

Ed stared. Logically, he knew Winry had beaten both Scar and Envy in physical fights, and her previous spar with Paninya had proved she had obviously trained extensively. But taking on both he and Al at once?

Al seemed to have similar misgivings. "Winry...are you sure?"

"Positive," she said, already assuming the 'ready' stance. "Come on, it'll be a good workout."

Ed and Al looked at each other, shrugged, then leapt forward. Al struck out with his elbow as Ed swung his feet at Winry's ankles, trying to sweep her legs out from under her. Like a child with a skipping rope, Winry leapt over his leg and let it pass beneath her, grabbing Al's elbow mid-jump and using it as leverage to fling herself over their heads.

Ed tried to turn, but Winry's foot shot out, catching him in the back of his knee. His leg bent as it was supposed to and Ed lurched forward, just managing to catch himself on his hands and knees. Winry had no chance to pursue her advantage, as Al came at her with a solid blow to the face. Winry dropped to the ground to avoid the punch, placing her hands against the cobblestones as a brace to launch her feet into the air. Her heels caught him in the chest, sending him to the ground and knocking the breath from his body.

Winry rolled to her feet, to find Ed's foot nearly in her face. For a moment, as his boot neared her cheek, Ed felt the familiar flash of triumph of a battle about to be won. But then, with a speed Ed could have sworn wasn't humanly possible, Winry's hands shot out, seized his ankle and spun it easily in her grip, sending him into a controlled tumble.

Al had recovered quickly, and was already launching a new attack. Winry back-flipped gracefully over his head, but he had been expecting such a move and whirled before she'd even touched the ground. For a moment, Al thought he'd moved fast enough to catch her, but as his arm swept down he found it parried with Winry's own.

Her hand twisted around his like a snake, grabbing his wrist as she spun into him. With more strength that Al would have thought her thin frame capable of, Winry twisted her hip into his stomach and with an easy torque of her waist and a yank on his arm, she sent him flying once more.

Al managed to right himself in mid-air and landed just in time to attack again alongside his brother. Both Elrics closed in, adrenaline and energy practically smoking off them as they threw themselves into the fight once more.

Ed swung again at her legs, forcing Winry to step back to avoid him. But Al had already moved behind her. The younger brother grabbed Winry's wrist, hoping to twist her arm up behind her back in the same move that had defeated Paninya.

Ed was facing Winry, and he was the only one who saw the sudden flash of intensity in her eyes. With a show of flexibility Ed didn't think was anatomically possible, she arched her back, flipping over Al's arm (whose hand was still on her wrist) and bringing her feet down onto his shoulders. Using them as a brace, she completed her flying somersault and sent him lurching forward. Al collided with Ed like a twelve-ton truck, and sent them both sprawling on the ground, the impact turning their bodies numb and making their ears ring.

"God, are you okay?" Winry hissed, rushing over to them as soon as her feet were on the ground again.

Ed and Al only managed to wheeze a few unintelligible words, the wind knocked from their bodies so forcefully Ed found himself wondering if he'd ever breathe properly again.

"You'll be fine," Winry pronounced, looking them over critically and poking at anything that looked damaged. "Only bruises."

Ed couldn't help remembering a time when Winry would have been far more concerned over their injuries. And he noticed that while he and Al were drenched in sweat and panting like they'd run a marathon, Winry's breath came only a little harder than before.

"How...did you do that?" Al gasped, eyeing Winry with the kind of respect a fighter affords those stronger than themselves.

"Sorry about that," she said, offering an apologetic grin. "I have to rein myself in while sparring, but you guys moved faster than I expected, and I just...reacted."

Questions burned on Al's tongue like strong liquor. He wanted to ask her who'd taught her to fight like that, how she'd even had the time to learn it in the first place...not to mention how she'd gotten so good in such a short span of time. He and Ed had been training for over ten years, and Winry – who couldn't have been training for more than five, less than half that time – had left them in the dust. What had Breda implied when they were in Rush Valley? That she'd had formal military training...?

But he didn't say anything. Instead, he stared the woman who had been a surrogate sister to him, and couldn't help but long for the old Winry Rockbell, the one who threw wrenches to defend herself and yelled at them for sparring on her back lawn.

Because the more he learned about this new Winry Rockbell, the more she unnerved him.

**oooooooo**

Winry persuaded them to take her to a bar, insisting she buy them a drink to make up for tossing them down in the courtyard.

"This place isn't bad," Winry commented, taking a delicate sip of the drink Envy had persuaded her to try. It was called 'Dark Sea', and she had a suspicion it was strongly alcoholic.

Ed smirked a little, noting the cautious way Winry was consuming her drink. But she had a point – the 'Dragon's Talon' was a nice place. He'd been rather reluctant to introduce Winry to the bars in Central, mainly because of the inevitable hostile reaction the Dissidents displayed to anyone who wasn't in the military.

But as it turned out, he needn't have worried. When the grumblings and sideways looks had started up, Winry had defused them in an instant with one of her smiles, the kind that just exuded charm and innocence. While the chipped tooth gave said smile a street-urchin look to it, that only seemed to enhance the child-like, guileless quality it possessed.

With one smile, the sullen murmurs had subsided almost instantly. It seemed Winry still possessed her gift of persuasion.

"Envy...what's in this?" Winry finally asked, waving her Dark Sea under his nose. "It smells like turpentine. And it tastes like mud."

"Puts hair on your chest, boss" Envy defended.

"In case you haven't noticed...I'm a woman! I don't need or want hair my chest!"

"Oh, I've noticed you're a woman, Pidgeon" Envy leered.

Winry refrained from rolling her eyes. "I'm sure you have. But that's not the point. The point is..._what is in this drink?_"

Ed glowered at Envy's less-than subtle flirtations. Envy just didn't seem to give up, no matter how many polite and not-so-polite rebuffs Winry dealt him. And Paninya and Scar seemed to treat it like a free show, just watching and occasionally (in Paninya's case) laughing.

When Envy refused to tell Winry what a Dark Sea consisted of, she turned to Scar and confided, "I think he's trying to poison me!"

"I am not!" Envy snapped, indignant.

Paninya took a tentative sip of the drink, and the face she pulled made her look like she'd swallowed a lemon. "What _is_ that, Envy? Motor oil?"

"Boss...you said you'd try it," Envy reminded Winry, sounding like a petulant child.

"I'm drinking it aren't I? Though I think I should have gone with Scar and just ordered water." Winry cast a glance at the man beside her, taking in the small glass of water in front of him. "What's it like, never drinking alcohol?"

Scar thought for a moment. "Calm. Controlled. Painless."

"He's got a point," Paninya laughed. "No hangovers if you only drink water. And no naked dancing on the top of the roof, either."

"Give me a break!" Envy snarled. "It was the first time I'd tried alcohol since getting this stupid _human-like_ body!"

Winry and Paninya snickered. The corner of Scar's lip lifted slightly. Ed and Al couldn't resist a short laugh at the once-homunculus's expense either. For a moment, the whole atmosphere was one of relaxation and laughter.

Then a sudden commotion erupted behind them, and the change in Winry and her group was astounding. At the explosion of noise, they were instantly tense and alert, spinning in their chairs to see the source of the disturbance. When they saw it was nothing more than a few tipsy men at the next table getting rowdy, they relaxed.

But the hair-trigger reflex was like a slap in the face to the Elric brothers. They had been relaxing, content to watch Winry and the others as they laughed and joked. But Winry and her people...they couldn't relax. Not entirely. Some part of them always had to be on alert, ready to react at the slightest hint of danger. They could never truly be at ease. Hadn't he seen as much while travelling to Central, with Winry's split-second transition from peacefully asleep to awake and threatening at just a nudge on the sole of her foot?

Just another facet of these people that hinted to Ed and Al how dangerous a life they had led for the past few years.

The men on the next table grew louder, until a particularly hard shove from one of their occupants sent another crashing forward into Winry's back. Winry's hands shot out to stabilise herself, but her Dark Sea drink spilled onto the table and soaked the cloth that covered her forearms.

Winry swore so viciously Ed and Al blinked.

"Still, at least now you don't have to drink it," Al pointed out, ever the optimist.

Winry gave him a weary smile. "There's that."

She began to unwind the sopping cloth that served her as arm-guards, wrinkling her nose as the reek of liquor filled the air. She began patting her pockets, as though searching for something. Then, with a small, triumphant noise, she pulled out the object of her rummaging.

A small piece of chalk.

Then, as Ed and Al watched in bewilderment, she sketched a small transmutation circle on the table with blinding speed, placed the cloth wrappings in the centre, and activated it. With a snapping sound and a flash of light, the alcohol that saturated the cloth evaporated, dissipating into the air to leave the material dry once more.

"You...you know alchemy?" Ed stammered.

Al seemed similarly astonished. "Where did you...how did you learn..."

Winry shrugged, avoiding their eyes. "I just...picked it up."

Ed was about to ask her how and when she had 'picked up' this particular skill when he noticed something. Something on Winry's left arm, previously covered by her wrist-guards. A flash of black...

Gently, he grasped Winry's hand and pulled it flat to get a better look. Her muscles tightened at first, as though she were considering resisting, but she relaxed after a moment, allowing him to inspect the marks he had glimpsed.

His breath froze in his lungs.

Numbers. Like those on Hawkeye's arm, on Breda's and Marcoh's. Numbers tattooed in black ink, etched into Winry's flesh as a permanent reminder of time spent in one of the H-Faction's prison camps. But unlike the other prison camp tattoos Ed had seen, this one didn't contain six digits. There were only two numbers printed on her skin. A one and an eight.

Eighteen.

**oooooooo**

_AN: As always, LaughingAstarael did a wonderful job of beta-ing for me._

_(1) The Gordian Knot is a story connected to Alexander the Great. It was an immensely complex knot that bound a horse to a cart, and it was prophesised that whoever parted the horse and cart would conquer Asia. Alexander tried to untie the knot, but when he could find no clear solution to the knot's tangles he simply cut it in half, parting the horse and cart._

_So, in essence, Winry is telling Envy she'll tie his tongue in a particularly hideous knot._


	7. Fall From Grace

**Chapter 7**

**Fall From Grace**

For long moments, Ed didn't move. He stared at the numbers tattooed on Winry's skin, scarcely able to believe what he was seeing. Beside him, he heard the hitch in Al's breath that told him his younger brother was similarly shocked.

Winry gently extricated her arm from his grasp and re-bound the cloth over her forearms, her eyes unreadable. Envy and Paninya suddenly seemed very interested in their drinks, but Scar was staring directly at Ed, and something in the Ishbalan's expression reminded Ed of their conversation last night.

_"__Vharla has been through more than you think...more than any of us can possibly imagine."_

"Winry..." his voice came out as a dry croak, and he swallowed harshly before trying again. "Winry...what...is that...?"

"It's none of your business," Winry hissed.

Something inside Ed snapped. "_The hell it isn't!_" he snarled. "There's only one place you get a tattoo like that, Winry!" His voice softened, and he finished in an almost pleading tone, "You were in a prison camp, weren't you?"

Winry swallowed and closed her eyes briefly, as though shutting the world out. She supposed it had been foolish – to hope they might be able to reunite without ever discussing what had happened to her. They would have demanded an explanation eventually...

Something inside her shrank from that thought like a vampire from sunlight. But Winry gritted her teeth, took a deep, cleansing breath and faced the impending crisis head-on.

"Not here," she relented, already pushing her chair back from the table.

"Our room," Al said desperately, scrambling to follow her. "We can-"

"Fine," Winry said shortly, striding out the door with the air of one who just wanted to get it all over with.

Neither Envy, Paninya or Scar commented when their leader and her two childhood friends walked out.

**oooooooo**

The distance back to Ed and Al's room was covered swiftly in the heavy, constrained type of silence that accompanies a funeral. Winry's demeanor didn't encourage conversation – there was a coldness about her now, a jaggedness, like a shard of broken glass frosted with ice.

Even when Ed and Al let her into their room, neither of them dared to break her imposed silence. They closed the door and stood awkwardly in the middle of room, both privately wondering what they should do or say to put Winry at ease.

The blonde woman was leaning against the window, looking out at the darkening sky. Her spine was straight, her shoulders rigid, her lips pressed together and her eyes shadowed. Nothing about her body language was encouraging.

Then, as though a switch had been flipped, her whole posture suddenly relaxed. Her shoulders slumped, her head bowed, and she looked...defeated.

"What do you want to know?" she asked softly, turning to face them.

Her expression was resigned, like a condemned prisoner facing a long-awaited execution. Paradoxically, her despairing capitulation made Ed angry.

"What kind of question is that?" he growled, ignoring the way Al tried to subtly kick him in the shin. "We want to know what happened to you!"

There was an odd look in Winry's eyes, as though she were trying to decide how much they could take. "Everything?"

Al bit his lip, but answered for both he and Ed. "Everything."

"Well, you got my letters, right?" Winry began, her shifting weight the only indication of her discomfort.

"Yeah...but then they stopped about six months in," Ed said softly.

Winry nodded. "That's when I was caught. The spy I was working for was found out, and under the H-Faction's tortures, she gave up my name. They came for me in the middle of the night – actually killed Garfiel to get to me. They...found out...that I knew nothing about the spy's other contacts-"

"You were tortured?" Al yelped, his voice several octaves higher than usual.

Winry nodded. "Standard procedure for captured spies. Eventually, they figured out I was telling the truth when I told them I didn't know anything. So they sent me to a...a prison camp, I guess you could call it...called the Angel's Nest. And there, they-"

Winry paused, then suddenly removed her jacket. Ignoring Ed and Al's noises of surprise, she began to unbutton her shirt, parting it in the centre, revealing the white cloth of her bra, the curves of her breasts...

And the transmutation circle tattooed on the centre of her chest.

Ed choked. He'd seen that circle before...he stepped closer to Winry, staring at the tattoo, trying to pinpoint where it was from. It was the same black ink as the numbers imprinted on her forearm, the raven-coloured lines twisting in an intricate yet simplistic array, broken in two by a scar that started a few inches below the hollow of her throat and disappeared beyond the barrier of her shirt.

Then, as abrupt and as shocking as a train wreck, Ed realised where he'd seen that tattoo before. It was the same as the one imprinted on the chest of the man he had killed.

The Angel of Death.

But...that meant Winry was...

"I was an Angel of Death," she said softly, tracing her fingers over the tattoo and the scar that cleaved it. "The eighteenth Angel of Death, to be precise."

Ed couldn't move, couldn't speak. His whole being was focused on those words – words that implied so much horror...but made so much chilling sense.

The tattoo on her wrist; two digits, not six...so different from all the other prison camp tattoos he'd seen. Winry's inexplicable, unsettlingly expertise in fighting techniques and alchemy.

An Angel of Death. Winry Rockbell – cheerful, energetic, innocent Winry Rockbell had been an Angel of Death. Winry Rockbell, whose hands had eased pain, granted new movement and welcomed a newborn baby into the world...forced to kill in the name of the enemy.

"They kept us – me and the others they were training – in that place for...I don't really know, over a year," Winry continued, re-buttoning her shirt. "I won't pretend to understand what they did to us there. They taught us to kill, of course, in everything from alchemy to martial arts, but the way they did it...they implanted the techniques with a form of...brainwashing, I guess you could call it. That's the closest I can come to describing it."

"Were they all...prisoners?" Al asked tentatively.

Winry nodded. "No one was there by consent, except the soldiers who kept us there, and the scientists and alchemists who were working on us. I don't know how the H-Faction chose who would be sent there and who wouldn't be, or why they chose to work only with captives. All I know is what they did to us. And what they did to us was 'teach' us those techniques and abilities that the Angels of Death are famous for, and then to make sure we could use them..."

Winry trailed off and bit her lip. She took a deep breath, and started again. "The 'tests', as they called them, were brutal. That's the only way I can describe it. The ones who survived became Angels of Death, and were tattooed with that circle to keep us in servitude. The wrist tattoos were just a form of identification."

"But why aren't you still killing for them?" Al blurted in his distress, then realised how tactless his question had been. "I mean...uh..."

"I know what you mean," Winry reassured him. "I was in their control for a few months. I'm not really sure how long. But in that battle that wiped the other Angels out, I caught a piece of shrapnel in the chest. Sliced right through the circle, and I guess when the circle was broken, it broke their hold on me."

"How did you survive?" Ed asked quietly. "The battle, I mean."

"Quite simple, really. As soon as their hold on me was broken, there was nothing keeping me fighting anymore. So I turned tail and ran."

"Back to Rush Valley?"

"No, back to the Angel's Nest." At Ed and Al's disbelieving looks, she clarified, "I knew the H-Faction were training a new batch of Angels, and I wanted to get them out before they suffered what we'd suffered."

Ed found himself shaking his head. Alone on a battlefield, injured, terrified, only just freed from horrifying mind-control...Winry had still thought of others first.

"And I was in desperate need of medical attention," Winry added. "That was the only place within miles that would treat me."

She licked her lips nervously. "At the Angel's Nest, they were so pleased one of their Angels had survived the massacre they didn't even question how I'd gotten away or check to make sure I was still under their control. They just patched me up and left me in the infirmary. I broke out that same night, along with the other prisoners."

"But how did you get back to Rush Valley? All those people...didn't someone notice?" Al piped up.

Winry shook her head. "While none of them were as...advanced...as me, they had still been subjected to some basic training. Including stealth. The H-Faction never knew there was a small army passing through their territory until we were actually in Rush Valley."

Another pause stretched into silence while Winry gathered her thoughts. "Looking back, it was probably rather lucky that the people who were following me had such training. It's the only reason we were able to drive the H-Faction out of Rush Valley. But the fight..." her eyes grew distant, and crinkled slightly in the corners. "Paninya lost her hand. Dominic and his family lost their lives. And they weren't the only ones."

The short period of silence seemed almost contemplative, as though Winry were mourning those who had given their lives for her cause.

Then she gave herself a little shake, and went on, "The rest, as they say, is history. We freed Rush Valley and set up the Resistance under the same symbol that had once freed me."

For a moment, Ed was confused at her last words. Then he remembered the symbol of the Resistance, the bisected circle – like the transmutation circle tattooed on her chest, broken by the scar. The symbol of her freedom had become the symbol of hope for those oppressed by the H-Faction.

But Winry was still speaking, and he wasn't left any time to dwell on that thought. "But that's when the H-Faction began to attack in earnest – they couldn't just let me get away, considering what I knew."

Al's brow wrinkled slightly. "But...you were a prisoner! How much _could_ you have known?"

"I was an Angel of Death!" Winry snapped. "I knew battle plans, positions of troops, methods of attack. I knew locations of prison camps, I knew their spies, their current intelligence, their scientific developments, their prototype weapons." With a breath to calm herself down, she finished quietly, "I didn't know everything, but I still knew far, _far_ too much for them to let me get away."

"That's why Scar was worried about assassins," Ed realised.

Winry smiled faintly, and pulled up her shirt and tapped a long scar across her side, as though someone had tried to run her through. "It's not the first time I've been attacked. I make jokes about his over-protectiveness, but his paranoia has saved me more than once. Just don't tell him I said that."

Ed dimly noted the fact that he could see another line of scar tissue that cut across her lower abdomen, as though someone had tried to disembowel her. And he could see the ending of the scar that cut through the transmutation circle tattooed on her chest – it ended a few inches above her navel. Some part of him wondered how she could have survived such a blow, let alone escaped from a prison camp while so injured. But he reminded himself Winry now possessed more than a passing knowledge of alchemy, and had obtained medical treatment before she attempted the break-out...they had probably transmuted something to staunch the wound.

"The Resistance was only barely holding ground. I knew we needed more recruits, I just couldn't see how we were going to get them." Winry chuckled a little, but the sound was brittle. "Then I remembered how I'd started the army in the first place – with those I'd helped escape from the prison camp. So I took a small group of my elite fighters into H-Faction territory, and we attacked a prison camp. The people we freed joined us, and slowly, we grew from an annoying thorn in the H-Faction's side to a real threat."

"And that's when you started to spread outwards from Rush Valley," Ed assumed. "Forcing the H-Faction back."

She nodded. "Now you know."

Winry stared levelly at the brothers, her whole body so still it could have been carved from marble. Her face was like a blank canvas, devoid of expression and warmth, her eyes resting on them but appearing not to actually _see_ them.

It was disturbing for Ed and Al, seeing Winry so frozen. Perhaps the most defining characteristic about Winry had been her energy, they way she was never quite still. Even when sitting down and involved in conversation, some part of her would still be moving – fingers tapping restlessly on a surface, a foot wiggling to the beat of music only she could hear. It was as though her skin wasn't enough to contain her ceaseless energy, forcing it to express itself in any way it could so she didn't fly to pieces.

But now...she was like a statue locked in frost, cold and completely still. And she said they now knew what had happened to her? Both Ed and Al knew they hadn't even begun to understand.

Ed was suddenly reminded of Scar's words, their meaning slowly taking shape in his mind, like looking into a pool of clouded water. You might not see anything at first, but if you looked long enough and your eyes focused on the right level...

_"__She's not as strong as she seems."_

_"__She has been forced to shoulder those responsibilities before her wounds healed."_

_"__She has buried them before they could truly be buried. She has been stone for far too long. But those wounds fester; like a plant's seed, spreading its roots throughout the rock, forcing the stone to crack. At first, the cracks are tiny, minuscule, barely noticeable...but they will widen. The seed must be rooted out before the stone crumbles entirely."_

And for the first time since greeting her on that dusty street in Rush Valley, Ed truly saw Winry for what she was – a woman who been forced to shoulder responsibilities she wasn't truly ready for. She had been captured, tortured and terrorised, and had only just gained her freedom when she took on the mantle of the Resistance Commander. Then, she had been a girl who had only just turned eighteen, who had only just recovered from a grievous physical injury...and so she had been forced to let the injuries to her heart and soul go unhealed.

Winry was a true leader; thinking of those around her, putting others before herself, balancing compassion and cool-headedness, battles and dances, orders and jokes, followers and friends. But in doing so, she had neglected what _she_ needed.

The people around her had needed a leader, not a traumatised child. So for their sakes, Winry had become that leader, burying her silent horrors and private terrors in a small, dark corner of her mind. Shuttered away, locked away, smothered and suppressed until she became the leader her people needed. The leader the world needed.

Time had dulled the wounds, time and the purpose she had found in her new role as Commander. But if time could dull, it could not erase entirely, and now that her time as Commander was coming to an end...the old wounds were asserting themselves. Her old pain came rushing up to the surface like a wellspring, and while the old hurts were not new or raw, they were only half-healed and still tender.

"We don't know what really happened Winry," Ed finally said, his voice soft and low as though he were approaching a frightened, abused animal.

"I told you everything."

"You didn't tell us what happened to _you_," Al murmured, his voice as quiet as his brother's.

"Yes I did. I told you-"

"You gave us a history book account of those years," Ed corrected, his tone still as soft as ever but with a firmer edge to it. "You didn't tell us what actually happened. You didn't tell us what they did to you, not really."

Winry's cool stance broke, becoming tense and feral, like a wild horse that felt the rope around its neck. She turned away from them and looked out the window again, as though the dark night outside offered some kind of shelter.

"It doesn't matter!" she hissed, her voice becoming slightly desperate. "Why do you want to know? I survived everything they did to me, isn't that the important thing?"

"I bet that's what you've told yourself," Ed continued doggedly. "_'I've survived, so it shouldn't hurt me anymore'_, right? But some part of you knows that's not true."

Al hung back, watching as his brother stepped towards the woman at the window, one hand gently extending to touch her shoulder. Muscles jumped beneath her skin, and for a moment he thought Winry would leap away from Ed. But other than the controlled flinch, she didn't move.

"Winry?" Ed breathed.

Ed realised she was shaking. The movement was too small to be noticed, but he could feel the vibrations of quivering muscles where his hand rested on her shoulder. The pressure was building, had been building for a very long time. She had been stone for far too long. She _was_ stone, hard and unyielding, constant and steady. But the right pressure, in the right place and at the right time...and even a stone will shatter.

Ed had a feeling Winry was about to shatter. She had been alone for a long time, forced to bear burdens that she never should have shouldered in the first place. He and Al's mere presence was causing the stone to crack, the knowledge that for the first time in five years, she wasn't alone. Someone was with her, someone who wasn't part of the Resistance, someone who she didn't see her as an invincible leader.

Someone she could trust.

"It's okay, Winry," Al breathed, coming to stand beside his brother. "Whatever happened...it's okay. You're with us now...we're here with you..."

Slowly, Ed moved so that he was standing in front of her. He tried to catch a glimpse of her eyes but her head was bowed, hiding her face behind a curtain of short blonde hair. Behind Winry, Al crept closer, finally slipping his arms around her waist and hugging her from behind.

Winry gasped and twitched, entertaining a half-hearted idea of shoving him away. _'Leave me alone!'_ a voice wailed in the cold, silent depths of her mind. _'Leave me alone! I don't need you – I don't need anyone! You don't have to know, no one has to know, you'd hate me if you knew...'_

"It's alright, Winry," Al whispered, a warm, reassuring presence at her back. "We're here, we're here. We love you and we won't stop, no matter what-"

Winry broke. With a dry sob, her knees buckled and she crumpled to the floor. Ed pulled her into his arms and held her tightly to him, lowering them gently to the wooden boards. Al followed, his grip on the small woman never faltering for a moment. Winry shuddered against them, her face buried in Ed's chest, one arm around his neck and the other over Al's arms, anchoring them in place. For the first time since they had found her, Winry was not only accepting but _maintaining_ human contact.

And then the words came. In a disjointed stream, heavy with emotion, the sudden outpouring all the more astounding for being so deeply buried, all the more explosive for being so long contained.

"They killed Garfiel," she choked out. "Killed him, right in front of me. They told him they wanted to see me and when he asked why they just shot him. Didn't even give him a chance, just shot him right there. God, there was so much blood...I thought they were going to shoot me, too. But they grabbed me and pressed something against my face...drugged, it had to be...and when I woke up..."

"You were in a prison," Ed whispered, stroking her hair.

"It was so dark," Winry breathed. "So dark and so cold. I was hungry all the time...they never gave me enough food, and any food they did give me was always filthy and tasted disgusting, but I never got anything else so I had to eat it. And every day, they'd pull me out of the cell and take me to...to _that place_...and then they'd string me up and burn me with cigarettes and whip me until I could feel blood running down my ankles..."

Ed was struggling valiantly to retain a sense of detachment. But hearing Winry's high, distressed voice babbling of her tortures was making him feel nauseous. He swallowed, telling himself firmly that it wouldn't help Winry if he threw upon the floor or burst into tears, and kept stroking her hair.

"They tied my arms to a winch and dropped me to dislocate my shoulders and shoved splinters under my fingernails and I tried _so_ hard to be strong, but I knew that if I'd known anything I would have told them and that _hurt_ – it hurt to know that. And at night they'd come to my cell and they'd...they'd..."

Winry's voice trailed off into a small whimper, like the sound emitted by a kitten that had been whipped. Ed was dimly aware that his muscles had tightened like coiled springs, and he was keeping his breathing slow and even with some difficulty. He had a horrible, sinking feeling about the next words that were about to come out of Winry's mouth...

But the words never came. She remained silent, shuddering gently, as though she couldn't bring herself to speak.

Some part of Ed didn't want to say it. As long as he didn't say it, it never happened, and he could live forever in the belief that Winry had never been...

But another, stronger part of him was well aware that ignoring something didn't make it go away. And he had to know.

"Winry...were you raped?"

Winry's breath hitched. Then, her face still hidden in his shirt, she nodded.

Ed's heart shattered like spun glass. He imagined he could almost see the pieces falling to the floor.

"More than...more than once?"

Nod.

"More than one man?"

Nod.

Ed's throat tightened, and he swallowed thickly, trying to force the lump of misery down. His eyes burned, and he blinked against the tears he could feel gathering in their corners.

_'I'm not going to cry, I'm not going to cry, I'm not going to cry...'_

A few drops of salty water slid over his cheeks. They gathered on the line of his jaw, surface tension fighting gravity, with gravity the eventual victor as several dark spots appeared on the shoulder of Winry's shirt, small circles of moist fabric.

Who was he kidding? He was on the brink of bawling like a baby, all because of the terrible, clawing despair and helpless misery that twisted his chest. That sensation had always bewildered him – weren't emotions meant to be nothing more than chemical signals sent through the brain? Then why did he feel as though his heart was physically tearing in two?

It was made worse by the crushing frustration building with him. The anger that seethed and boiled in his blood at the idea of Winry being harmed, being _used_, being _violated _like that, and the knowledge that such anger was useless. He couldn't help her, he couldn't do anything! For the first time, he thought he could understand the lost, heartbroken look that drifted into Mustang's eyes when he looked at Hawkeye.

"And then...then...I got pregnant." Winry seemed to choke on the words as they erupted from her mouth like poison.

"Winry..." Al breathed. "You...you had a baby?"

Winry shook her head vigorously, her hair whipping against Ed's chest. "No...they...they said they couldn't let it...couldn't let me...and then they cut..."

Her hand slid from Al's arm for a brief moment to press sharply against her flat belly, her fingers digging into her own flesh. It was only for a second – the next instant, she had renewed her grip on Al as though nothing had happened – but it was enough to tell both brothers what had happened. In a flash, Ed remembered the scar across her stomach. He'd thought an enemy had tried to disembowel her, he'd never thought for one instant that...

The H-Faction had never allowed Winry to carry the baby to full-term. Instead, they had cut the growing life from her body in a barbaric abortion that he would bet had been every bit agonising as horrific. Ed closed his eyes to try and quell the sickening images rising in his mind.

"But it went wrong...it scarred...it meant that I couldn't...couldn't ever get pregnant again..."

Ed's breath rushed out of his lungs with a ripping sound. He was almost dizzy with rage. It wasn't enough that they had tortured her, raped her, forcibly aborted her child...they had to ensure she had a permanent reminder in her inability to bear children, too?

Winry swallowed hard. "At least, that's what I thought. But when Dr. Marcoh came...he fixed me...did alchemy...made it so I _could_ have children again, so that's..."

"That's why you call him Miracle-worker," Al realised.

Suddenly, it made sense. Winry's inexplicably hostile reaction to his question in the truck about that name...because she hadn't been ready to share her story with them. Not then.

Winry shivered slightly and went on, "Eventually...they realised I didn't know anything and then they sent me to Angel's Nest. They fed me and cleaned me and fixed me up and I couldn't figure out what they were going to do, until...until the first 'session'. They...they...I don't know what they did – I don't know!"

She hiccuped slightly. "But then...I guess no one really remembers brainwashing, right? And that's...that's why I'm so good at...at these things...alchemy, fighting, stealth...k-killing. It wasn't like learning...it was like they shoved it so deep into my brain it became...instinct. Instinct to know how to sneak into a house...instinct to fight – with hands or blades or guns...instinct to kill..."

Another shudder ran through her. "And then...and then the 'tests'...real-life situations, they said...made us fight each other...made us try to assassinate each other. They were...they were trying to see which of us...which of us was the best. Like...like we were _livestock_ and they were trying to choose the ones to cull! So many people died...so many...but I survived...somehow, I survived...me and seventeen others...and then they put the tattoo on my chest and it felt...God, it felt awful, like someone was ripping me apart. And then I was following every order that came out of their mouths, even though I didn't want to, I couldn't stop myself...God, I killed so many people, just because they told me to. God...oh, God...oh God oh God oh God..."

She was starting to sound slightly hysterical, but Ed couldn't help noticing that his shirt wasn't wet. Winry wasn't crying. The only sounds emerging were dry, heaving sobs.

Ed just held her tighter, feeling the arm around his neck tense as Winry tried to pull him closer. He was strongly reminded of a story his mother had once told to him. A story about an angel who went down to Earth to help mankind, but ended up being mistaken for a bird by hunters. They shot at the beautiful figure in the sky, and when the injured angel fell she broke her wings. Unable to fly, the angel had been condemned to wander the Earth, enduring all its cruelties and evil, for the rest of her life.

The story had a happy ending, of course, something about her falling in love and living happily ever after, but that wasn't what Ed was thinking of at the moment. He was only thinking of the first part of the story. Like the angel, Winry had tried to help people. And like the angel, Winry had been shot down, her wings broken and ruined, never to fly again. She could never be innocent again, she would never taste pure, simplistic joy again. Not after what she had gone through, not after looking into the soul of the darkness.

Ed was speaking from experience.

But even the angel had been gifted a happily ever after. Even after the shadows, there could be happiness.

But first, you had to walk forward.

"It's okay, Winry, it's alright," Al whispered. "It's over now. It's over. You don't have to be strong anymore, not with us. You can cry if you want to."

Winry let out a quiet wail and finally, Ed felt the front of his shirt grow damp as Winry shed five years worth of pain and tears onto his chest.

**oooooooo**

_AN: Once again, thank you so much LaughingAstarael, for beta-ing this story and tolerating my insecurities. This chapter would never have been posted without you._


	8. The Raid

**Chapter 8**

**The Raid**

Winry ambled out of the makeshift boardroom, as usual several steps behind the Dissident officials.

"I think they may be close to giving in," Roy remarked, watching the military brass leave.

"Thank God," Winry sighed, massaging a stiffened muscle in her neck. "I swear, I am so close to smashing their heads together just to see if anything rattles around in there..."

"Can I help?" Envy asked, looking delighted at the prospect of violence.

Winry cuffed him lightly on the side of his head.

"So you're making progress?" Al supplied, looking positively ecstatic on her behalf.

"Slowly but surely," Winry grinned.

It had been several days since Winry's breakdown, and if he hadn't witnessed it himself Ed could have sworn it had never happened. She seemed as steely and as confident as ever. But sometimes, when she looked at him or at Al, her face would soften slightly and a strange light would come into her eyes. That was when he knew it hadn't been some sort of hallucination or crazy dream. She remembered it too.

It spoke volumes of the trust she placed in both brothers that she had allowed it to happen at all. Ed was under no delusions – Winry had broken down back there because she had _wanted_ to. Some part of her had known it was alright, had known that she was safe with them, in every sense of the word. If anyone else had been with her...Ed suspected they would never have known anything was wrong.

Because that was what Winry did. While he and Al had never made any real effort to hide what they were feeling (and even if they did, they weren't very good at it) Winry might be the best actor he had ever seen. It seemed inconceivable that she could smile and joke and laugh with the others after what she had confessed to them. It seemed impossible she could have borne that pain for all those years without ever breaking.

But Winry had always hidden pain behind a mask of joy. He remembered seeing her point a gun at Scar so many years ago and realising how much sorrow she was still carrying with her. It had been a startling realisation – that Winry could hide such things so well, bury them so deeply, that not even he or Al could see them.

It was the way she dealt with her parents' death, the way she dealt with all that been forced on her and everything she had been forced to do. It was the only thing Winry could do to remain functioning. And now that she'd released some of the pain that she had held inside for so long...she could only get better.

Winry felt Ed's gaze on her, and hid a fond smile. He and Al had been wonderfully discrete, never bringing up her breakdown, not even when they were alone. She was glad they weren't going to push her; she wasn't sure she was entirely comfortable with another soul-baring discussion – they took a lot out of her. She hadn't cried like that since...well, ever.

It seemed all three had reached a silent, unspoken agreement. Winry would talk more when she was ready, but until then, all parties involved would act as though it had never happened.

"Good going, Commander," Breda suddenly barked as a laugh, clapping Winry on the shoulder. The gesture was companionable, but still had an aura of respect about it.

Al saw the momentary blankness flicker in Winry's eyes – the split-second tension that always quivered across her body when she was touched – before she seemed to realise Breda wasn't a threat. He had seen it before, and wondered about it, but it was only now he knew the reason behind it. He supposed anyone who had endured what Winry had endured would be wary of physical contact.

"How about a game of shogi?" Breda offered.

"No way!" Winry scoffed. "I was bent over a table matching wits with stuffy old men all day. What makes you think I want to do it again?"

"Oi! Watch who you're calling a stuffy old man!"

Winry grinned mischievously. "Just telling the truth. Shogi's out. How about a game of football?"

For a moment, Ed was sure he hadn't heard right. Winry had suggested they play football?

"I'm in!" Paninya yelled. "I call Envy!"

Winry sighed. "What do you say, Scar? Up to helping me teach these two a lesson?"

Scar shrugged. "As you wish, Vharla."

"You don't have to make it sound like I'm forcing you. You're perfectly capable of saying 'no'. Do you want to play, or not?"

"I said I am going to play, so I will." Scar's voice was bland, but Ed didn't think he was imagining the gleam of pleasure in his eyes.

"Anyone else?" Winry asked, looking around.

Looking at the current participants, Ed found himself thinking he wanted to sit this one out. He felt that this game would be far more entertaining from the sidelines.

**oooooooo**

"Envy, jump for it!"

"I got it! I got it!"

"Not for long!"

Ed leaned back against the wall and reflected that he had been right – this game _was_ more entertaining from the sidelines. It wasn't quite football, but it had many of the same basic rules.

Envy had leapt for the ball, but now he had to deal with Winry charging at him like a runaway train. He dodged nimbly, but Winry changed directions practically in mid-air, snatching the ball from his grip.

Winry landed on the ground in a cat-like crouch and surged forward, making for the small bin at the end of the courtyard that served as the goal. Paninya shot after her, but was intercepted by Scar, the Ishbalan using his massive bulk as a physical blockade.

Winry slammed the ball into the bin and then spun on the spot, gyrating madly in an impromptu victory dance.

"Awesome work, Scar," she crowed. "_We rock! You guys suck!_"

"Screw you," Envy muttered.

"Buy me dinner first," Winry tossed back, grinning broadly at his obvious resentment.

"Laugh now," Paninya grumbled, retrieving the ball and setting it down in the centre of their makeshift playing field. "Envy and I shall triumph eventually!"

"I'm hearing a lot of talk there, Pan," Winry smiled, "Let's go!"

"Bring it on!"

Scar seized the ball in the rush, hurling it towards Winry. Winry leapt neatly, catching it with ease and rocketing off towards the goal. Envy sprinted after her, his inhuman speed catching up to her in seconds. Winry squealed as Envy swept her into his arms, spinning on his heel then charging down the field towards the opposite goal, carrying both the ball and Winry.

"Envy, put me down!" Winry shrieked.

She could have extricated herself with ease, but knew no way to pull herself from his grip that wouldn't hurt him (the people running Angel's Nest weren't exactly fans of the non-violent resistance) and so submitted to his manhandling with a rueful smile. As expected, when Envy reached the goal, instead of dropping the ball into the bin, he dumped Winry herself into the receptacle.

Winry cursed playfully, floundering upright. Envy had ensured she tumbled in without pain or injury, and while she found his concern touching she wasn't about to let him know that. Instead, she threw the football at his head in retaliation. Envy caught it effortlessly and moved to set it down in the centre once more.

"No hard feelings, Pidgeon?"

"Stop with that stupid nickname," Winry growled, but there was no real rancour in her voice.

The moment was broken by a deafening shout that sounded from the building. "_We have an emergency!_"

The game was instantly forgotten. Everyone whirled on the spot, muscles tense and veins flooding with adrenaline. Ed didn't know where Winry had hidden the knife, but the blade was in her hand in the space of a heartbeat. The blonde woman relaxed slightly upon seeing it was only Riza hurrying towards them.

"What happened?" she barked, her tone shifting in an instant from playful and laughing to hard and commanding.

"A squad stumbled upon a H-Faction encampment about twelve miles south-east of here," Riza reported automatically, years of military training conditioning her to respond to a voice that held such authority. "They say that it's small, but there are Dissident prisoners being held there.."

"Twelve miles south-east..." Winry murmured, "They're hiding in Black Glass Canyon! I thought we cleaned that place out!"

"Like cockroaches," Paninya hissed. "Can't step on them just once!"

"The Major General is going to attempt to liberate the prisoners," Riza continued. "And I thought that-"

"If we help, it might convince the Dissident brass we really _are_ the good guys," Winry finished. "I like the way you think!"

"The Major General is reviewing the information now," Riza added helpfully.

"So if we were to just wander up to his office..." Winry supplied, smirking.

The courtyard was soon deserted, empty save for an abandoned football in the centre and two bins at opposite ends like guards protecting an empty kingdom.

**oooooooo**

"The squad managed to take these surveillance photos," Roy told them, tossing the small stack of Polaroids onto the desk.

As soon as Winry and Riza had explained their plan to ingratiate the Resistance and its Commander with the Dissident officials (besides him, of course, who was already won over on principal) he had been more than willing to share his information. After all, anything that got him out of another week of long-winded discussions in that stifling room was a good cause as far as he was concerned.

Winry scanned the photos, passing them to her people for inspection when she was done. Her eyes were calculating, as hard and sharp as a diamond-edged blade. She absorbed the information she needed like a dry sponge dropped into water, and Ed could see her formidable mind was already churning, already mapping out the details of a plan that would liberate the Dissident prisoners as she had liberated those oppressed in Rush Valley.

"Any ideas?" Roy asked as Winry passed the last photo into Paninya's metal fingers.

Winry's hand hovered over the rough map on the table like a hawk waiting to strike. "They rely on dogs to guard the gates here, here and here," she said, pointing at the appropriate places. "And that works to our advantage."

"Because no matter how well a dog is trained, it's not a soldier," Breda said. "What soldiers will regard as a threat isn't necessarily what dogs will regard as a threat."

"Breda's good with dogs," Winry informed the room at large.

Roy's eyes were measuring and more than a little puzzled. "I thought you...didn't like dogs."

Breda shrugged, but the line of his back had tightened. "There were a couple of dogs in the camp where they kept me. When I was trying to escape, I had to learn to interact with them."

Riza nodded slightly, remembering Breda's easy interaction with Black Hayate, of whom he had once been deathly afraid. Breda must have conquered his phobia of dogs in the camp so he could interact with the guard dogs, so they could grow accustomed to his presence and he might have been able to slip past them.

"But we aren't going to interact with these dogs for weeks," Roy pointed out, "We won't have time to gain the animal's confidence."

"I never said we would," Winry corrected. "But remember what Breda said, 'what soldiers will regard as a threat isn't necessarily what dogs will regard as a threat'. We won't walk through the gate...we'll tunnel under it. And while the dogs may not know what to make of the noises coming from the ground, it's unlikely they'll think them a threat in the same way a soldier would."

"But tunneling into the camp would take weeks!" Al exclaimed.

"Don't interrupt me," Winry said. "If we use alchemy, it'll take us an hour or so at most. We'll surface here-" she pointed to a small gap between the cell block and the storehouse. "And from there we have a line of sight to the barracks and the power station. If we blow them up with some tricky alchemy, that should be enough of a distraction to keep the guards busy for a while. Plant some men along the line of trees outside the camp, near the barracks, and with a few guns and a little alchemy they could set up a very convincing mock-attack. Then while the guards are busy dealing with the obvious threat, the group that tunneled in can break the prisoners out."

For a moment, Roy was stunned. He knew that as the Resistance Commander, Winry must have planned every battle and raid the Resistance was involved in, but it wasn't until this moment that he saw how skilled she actually was. She had glanced at a few photos and a map of the camp, identified the weak points in their defense and proceeded to lay out a plan exploiting said weaknesses.

Her eyes flared to bright sapphire as she scanned the map once more, searching out any detail she might have missed. She was cool, calm and level-headed, but at the same time he could sense the aching passion behind her words. The desire to free these prisoners – not only because it might help her people – but because she genuinely wanted to help them, because it was the right thing to do. It was a rare quality, rarer still to find it tempered with the calm professionalism Winry displayed. Roy could understand why the people in the Resistance – many of whom were twice Winry's age – would call her their leader.

"We should probably wait about an hour before heading off," Winry mused. "So when we actually arrive, it'll be dark enough to give us an advantage, but not so we lose each other in the night."

Then she shrugged and said diplomatically, "At least, that's my idea. Anyone got any others?"

Silence prevailed.

"I think...I think that's a good plan," Roy said at last. "We move out in an hour. Meet in this room."

Winry hopped to her feet. "Got it! Just one more thing; are we killing or capturing?"

"Capture would be preferable," Roy said quietly. Ed and Al looked surprised she would ask such a question, but the Major General knew the reason. The level of force you were expected to use affected everything from battle tactics to choice of weapons.

Winry nodded once, then breezed out the door with her comrades on her heels.

**oooooooo**

When he walked into Mustang's office an hour later, Ed was hard-pressed to keep his jaw from hitting the floor. He'd thought he'd seen every facet of this new Winry and her followers. But he'd never seen them ready for an all-out battle before.

They had traded their original jackets and pants for ones daubed with the outlandish camouflage pattern, and it was odd to see them in clothes other than the dark colours of the Resistance. Envy and Paninya were checking guns and slinging braces of ammunition across their bodies. Scar and Breda were bent over the map as though memorising every line. And Winry...

Winry was leaning against the wall with her arms folded, surveying their preparations with eagle-sharp eyes. She was wearing her black headband again, the white bisected circle of the Resistance displayed proudly on her forehead. She wore two gun belts – one at her waist and another at her shoulder – each holding a firearm and cartridges of ammunition. Another belt, this one holding several small throwing knives, was slung across her chest, and a nasty-looking dagger was tucked into a sheath at her hip. But what Ed found most surprising was that her wrist guards were no longer simple cloth, but soft leather encircling her forearms, each with a transmutation circle etched into its surface.

"Stop staring, you'll give me a complex."

Ed started. He hadn't even been aware Winry knew he was watching her.

"I was just wondering about that transmutation circle," he defended, his cheeks heating slightly.

Winry smiled, and brought her wrists together in mute demonstration. The transmutation circles touched, sparked...

And lightning crackled between Winry's fingers, arcs of electricity washing the room in white light for an instant before she fisted her hand and doused them.

The others looked in her direction for an instant, then relaxed once more.

"Electrical alchemy," Al breathed, having just entered behind Ed. "How...?"

"Some of the people held in H-Faction's camps were State Alchemists," Winry explained. "A lot of them used these kinds of shortcuts – like the Major General's gloves. A single gesture that produces a single type of alchemy. And electricity happens to be one of the most versatile."

Ed supposed that was true. After all, by varying the intensity Winry could go from merely stalling a car's engine to demolishing a building from afar.

The door opened abruptly, allowing Roy, Riza, Fuery and Armstrong to stride in. The Major General gave a cursory glance around the room, ensuring everyone was present.

"Anyone coming with us?" Winry asked.

"A small squad," Riza nodded. "Mainly to provide the distraction while we tunnel into the heart of the camp."

Winry sighed, air rushing out of her lungs in a swift stream. "Sounds good. Move out?"

"Move out," Roy affirmed.

The office was empty within ten seconds. Outside, in the sky above Central, the sun was already sinking towards the horizon.

**oooooooo**

"This is almost _too_ easy," Roy smirked, watching as the guards rushed towards the demolished barracks and power station, bullets already beginning to rip through the air.

Armstrong and Scar were with the other group, their own particular brands of alchemy combining with the whizz of bullets to create a very convincing illusion of a serious attack.

"Where did Winry go?" Ed hissed urgently, looking around desperately while trying to stay hidden in the shadows at the same time.

"Don't have a heart attack, Fullmetal," Envy snorted. "Boss said she was going to get something to help us get into the cell block."

"And look what I found!" Winry sang out, materialising out of the night like a wraith.

There was something in her tone that made the hairs on the back of Ed's neck prickle. Something bitter and dangerous, menacing and cruel...

Ed then realised she was dragging a man behind her. She flung the figure to the ground in front of her and turned him over, planting her boot in his chest to keep him from rising.

"Who's-" Paninya started, but Winry cut her off.

"This is Dr. Hira."

"How do you know-"

"We've met before." The edge on Winry's voice could have sliced through a steel-plated diamond. "Haven't we, Doctor?"

This time, there was nothing child-like or enchanting about Winry's smile. This time, there was only black viciousness and raw hatred dripping from her face like blood from some hidden injury. The broken tooth didn't lend an urchin-like quality anymore; instead it made the expression somehow fiercer, more feral, like a wolf with a tattered ear.

Hira looked up and the blood drained from his face. "You..."

Winry's smile became, if possible, even more terrifying. "Me."

"You..." Hira stammered. "You..."

He seemed unable to say anything else. Winry sighed, and flicked her hair over her shoulder.

"Listen," she hissed. "We're getting the prisoners out, so we'd like your keys."

"I don't have-"

"I'm not stupid, _Doctor_," Winry's sarcastic drawl mocked the title. "I know you. I know your penchant for your experiments. And I know you'll have the keys."

"I don't have-"

"Don't fool yourself," Winry scoffed. "We don't actually need the keys – I can pick locks, after all. It's just that we're on a tight schedule and I would appreciate not having to jimmy every locked door open."

The man swallowed – there was something about Winry's bland tone that was very frightening – and said, "I don't have the keys."

"Fine," Winry sighed. "Envy, break him in half."

"What?" Hira yelped as Envy reached for him. "You can't-"

"Give us the keys, or spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair," Winry said flatly. "Your choice."

Hira couldn't get rid of the keys fast enough.

**oooooooo**

Even after the prisoners were freed, the guards subdued and captured, Ed still couldn't stop thinking about that moment. Would Winry really have let Envy torture that man? And how did Winry know him in the first place?

"Winry, don't!" came Paninya's shout.

Ed spun around. Winry was towering over the handcuffed Hira and she radiated barely-leashed fury. He hurried towards them automatically, and dimly noted that Roy, Riza, Fuery, Armstrong and Breda were doing the same.

"You were going to do it here, weren't you?" she spat, grabbing the man's collar and lifted him to his feet. Hira was actually taller than her, but the waves of sheer violent passion rolling off Winry and the look in her eyes made him cower away from her.

"_You were going to create another Angel's Nest, weren't you?_" Winry's voice rose in pitch, like a sword screaming through a hurricane.

"Angel's Nest?" Roy murmured. "Wasn't that where they trained the Angels of Death?"

"Exactly," Winry snarled. "And the good doctor here was planning on setting up another such camp here."

"I wouldn't-" Hira blustered, then stuttered to a halt as Winry's knife suddenly caressed his throat.

"Go ahead," Winry breathed, her voice tight. "Deny it. I _dare_ you."

No one moved. Hira didn't so much as twitch. Looking at Winry holding her knife to the man's throat, Ed felt as though ice water was slithering down his spine. Fear welled in his throat like bile.

"Winry..." Al's voice was small. "There's no proof...how do you know he'll...?"

"_Because he was one of the scientists at the original Angel's Nest!_" Winry snapped, her eyes flashing blue fire.

And then, Ed and Al understood. This was one of the scientists who had turned Winry into an Angel of Death, who had made her into a killing machine.

No wonder she seemed inches away from ripping the man apart. And for a moment, Ed wondered if he should stop her. Didn't she have the right to visit justice upon the person who'd tortured her like that?

Winry's face was chillingly calm as she contemplated the man in front of her. "I should kill you here and now."

"_No!_" Paninya hissed, too low for anyone else to hear. "_Winry, no!_"

Winry stood in front of one of the men who had imprisoned her, tortured her, twisted her mind and soul for their own heinous purposes...and felt very...heavy. Her rage was beyond the hot flush of passionate fury, or even the icy anger of a vendetta. It was a weight, a weight pressing on every inch of her skin, making her chest heave with each breath, making her muscles tremble with something that felt like exhaustion.

"Winry, don't..." Paninya pleaded. "You're better than this! Don't let him win!"

She could kill him. Maybe she _should_ kill him. She _wanted_ to kill him. But...

_'You're better then this!'_

_'Don't let him win!'_

Desperate, pitiful clichés. Words that had been said dozens of times to dozens of people as their friends tried to persuade them not to kill.

But that didn't make them any less true. If she killed Hira now...Winry knew that would cross a line she'd drawn for herself a long time ago. If she killed this man...it would be the first time she killed because she _wanted_ to. It would prove that she was just a killing machine.

And that wasn't a line Winry was willing to cross.

Ed was holding his breath, then released it in a sigh as Winry sheathed her knife and took a step back. But she suddenly touched her wrists together, and a bolt of lightning snaked from her hands to lance through Hira's body. The man screamed, his body curving in a vicious arc as the crackle of electricity and the scent of burning flesh filled the air.

Winry flicked her wrists, and the lightning vanished with a rush and a snap. Hira collapsed on the ground, convulsing and retching, wracked with agony.

"That was for one and a half years of my life!" Winry spat, then turned on her heel and strode away.

At least, she would have, if Roy hadn't seized her wrist. Winry's eyes flashed, and Roy had the sudden urge to remove his hand before Winry ripped it off.

But something told him this was very important.

"What was that about?" he asked in a low voice.

Had Winry been calmer, she would have yanked her wrist from his grip (and considering her mood, maybe added a move or two that would make him think twice before trying a such a stunt again) and just walked away. But she was feeling more than a little emotional, and rationality was a long forgotten landmark several miles back.

So she tore her arm from his grasp and yanked her left wrist guard off as she pulled the collar of her shirt down. She made sure he, Riza, Armstrong and Fuery could see the numbers tattooed on her wrist, and the transmutation circle inked into the centre of her chest.

"What was that about?" she echoed. "That was about a man responsible for ruining seventeen lives and nearly ruining mine."

Riza's breath seemed stuck in her throat. "How-?"

Winry's laugh was empty, brittle and bitter. "Haven't guessed yet? I was the eighteenth Angel of Death. I survived the massacre, I escaped from Angel's Nest...only to find that scum here," she jerked her head at Hira. "Trying to start another."

This time, when Winry walked away, no one made any move to stop her.

**oooooooo**

_AN: Once again, thanks so much LaughingAstarael._


	9. Revelations

**Chapter 9**

**Revelations**

"She's changed," Riza said simply. "I don't think I actually realised how much until..."

"Until today," Roy finished.

The journey back to Central had been made in silence, no Dissident capable of meeting Winry's eyes. It seemed almost incomprehensible that the sunny mechanic who had so often breezed through Central's headquarters on a mission to repair Ed's automail could be the same Commander who had calmly suggested killing a man in cold blood.

"Armstrong, you knew her best," Fuery said at last. "Did you ever think...?"

Armstrong shook his head. "I knew Winry as an innocent girl who was passionate about automail. I didn't recognise the woman I saw today."

All were silent for several moments, in the acknowledgment that the Winry Rockbell they had seen a few hours ago had definitely not been an innocent girl. She had been a warrior, a soldier forged in the flames of war and tempered with the steel of battle.

Roy remembered the tattoo seared onto Winry's chest like a brand, the lines and symbols of the circle mute testimony to what she had suffered. He remembered her icy calm during the raid, the cool distance of a fighter used to life or death situations to the point where their body can ignore the thrumming of adrenaline in favour of clear thought and decisive action.

"I should have seen this," he found himself saying.

Riza shook her head. "Don't blame yourself. We all saw that she had changed-"

"You didn't see her with the other Dissident officials," Roy laughed bitterly. "When she steps into that room...her whole bearing changes. She stands tall and straight, she radiates dignity and confidence – a charismatic Commander whose word is her bond, someone who could lead an army larger than ours even though she's only a single voice to our many...I was foolish to be taken in by her cheerful, careless mask."

"I knew Breda respected her," Fuery said quietly. "When we went drinking...it was the way he talked about her. I could tell he was as loyal to her as he was to you, Major General. And it takes a lot to get Breda's true loyalty."

"She was such a charming girl..." Armstrong muttered sadly. "All smiles and sunshine...completely obsessed with automail, of course..."

"I haven't seen her so much as touch a wrench," Riza added. "But I suppose that, as the Commander, she has too much to do."

Amstrong frowned. "I would have thought her love of mechanics would never fade."

"I doubt it has," Riza said, shrugging. "But as Commander, her duties take precedence over her desires. The needs of her people are more important that what she wants for herself."

"Only a true leader thinks and feels that way," Roy mused.

For a moment, he wondered if such qualities in Winry were a product of the war. Or had they always been within her, a small seed of greatness, that the war had simply allowed to grow to full potential?

**oooooooo**

Ed was still shaken by the day's events as he rolled in his bed and tried to get some sleep. He suspected everyone was shaken – Roy, Riza, Fuery and Armstrong had all been struck dumb by Winry's revelation, and had been sneaking glances at her under the lids of their eyes on the journey back.

But it wasn't Winry's revelation that had shocked him. It was her casual suggestion of torture that had him so astounded.

_"__Envy, break him in half."_

Though after everything she had told him of her ordeal, he wondered why he found it so astonishing. In dealing with captured H-Faction troops who were unwilling to part with their information, Winry would have been forced to employ torture at some point, probably learning from the very techniques the H-Faction had used on her.

But there was knowing and then there was _knowing_ – knowing in the intellectual sense and knowing in the sense of seeing your oldest friend ordering a man's spine to be snapped in two.

Ed had the feeling this was spelling another sleepless night for him, and Al made no acknowledgment when his brother rose and left their room.

**oooooooo**

Ed wondered if this would get to be a habit – this midnight walking he seemed to have developed since Winry and the others came to Central.

Ed wasn't paying attention to where his feet were carrying him, so it was with no real surprise he found himself in the cafeteria. What surprised him was the person he found there.

Envy was sitting at one of the tables, casually consuming a sandwich as though he had every right in the world to be there. It was one of those things that were so unexpected – as out of place as a fish riding a bicycle – that they made you stop and stare.

Envy's eyes rose to his. "Something you want, Fullmetal?"

Ed wondered if the slighty sarcastic tone was a permanent feature of Envy's voice. He knew Envy had never addressed him – or anyone else, for that matter – in any other way, though he tended to use a more moderate tone when speaking with Winry.

Ed shook his head. "I don't want anything."

"Then why the hell are you here?"

"Why are _you_ here?" Ed retorted. It irked him that his former foe could reduce him to this kind of immature comeback – it felt like he was in kindergarten again, standing up to a playground bully.

"I'm eating," Envy smirked. "Boss introduced me to the concept of a midnight snack."

"What you ate at dinner wasn't enough?" Ed muttered, unable to resist a subtle needling. Envy had eaten more than anyone else, and considering he and Al were at the table that was saying a lot.

Envy shrugged affably. "I have a big appetite, so what? Probably making up for all those years I _didn't_ eat."

Ed just stared at him.

Envy scowled. "What's bitten you?"

Almost against his will, Ed found himself sliding into the chair opposite Envy. "Would Winry really let you...you know...?"

"Put that guy in a wheelchair?" Envy grinned. "Don't look so surprised, Fullmetal. Your little mechanic ain't so little anymore. She grew up, grew fangs and claws – sharp ones, too – and a serious set of brass balls."

"I second that!" came a voice from behind Ed.

He turned. Paninya was leaning against the door jamb, laughing softly.

"You're up, too?" Envy said, snorting. "Regular party."

"Couldn't sleep, came to grab a drink," Paninya said succinctly, ambling into the cafeteria and pouring herself some water.

"I heard what you said," she continued, sliding into the seat next to Envy. "And while I can understand where you're coming from...you have to understand that Winry does what's necessary. She's changed, Ed. She's not a household tabby having hissy fits anymore...she's a tiger that stalks with the intent to kill. And it's not surprising, considering what she's been through."

"You know?" Ed asked, his head tilting to one side as he regarded the dark-haired girl.

"Everyone in Winry's 'inner circle' knows, so to speak," she shrugged. "Me, Scar, Breda, Envy here-" she nudged the green-haired man. "I mean...I saw her when she first came back to Rush Valley. She was...she was in awful shape."

Paninya's voice had gone very quiet, and her eyes looked slightly unfocused as though she were looking back through her memories, looking back through time, to the day when Winry and her army drove the H-Faction out of Rush Valley.

"She rallied her army, forced the H-Faction out, and then practically collapsed. The wound in her chest had opened again and was bleeding on and off. The sternum itself had been cracked – the shrapnel had gone _that_ deep – and there were pieces of metal still embedded in her skin."

Paninya shook her head. "And she'd crossed miles of H-Faction territory and fought a battle with those injuries! Normal people don't do things like that."

She sighed heavily. "I'll never understand how she did it. I always knew Winry was something special, but it was then I knew she was the kind of special they write about in the history books. The kind of special that changes the world."

"That was also the day I knew I wanted to go alone for the ride," she laughed. "And not just because she was going to make history. Because I thought – after what she'd been through – she'd need all the help she could get. And I wanted to be that help."

Another laugh. "I even persuaded her to give me some training in mechanics – to take the weight off her shoulders, you know? So she didn't have to be the Resistance's mechanic on top of being its leader. I mean, it wasn't easy – Winry has a real gift for mechanics, it's practically instinctive, and filling those shoes was a lot of work. I still have to ask her for help if I'm dealing with a particularly knotty machine. But I know I'm making it easier for her, so-"

Envy smirked, and Paninya rounded on him. "You think it's funny?"

"Just reflecting on how boss has a way of tugging at heartstrings you didn't know you had," Envy said honestly.

"What's your story?" Ed snorted with a bit more heat than he really meant to. Old habits were hard to break.

"Me?" Envy shrugged. "What can I say? When she took me in, I was determined to use her and lose her – stick around long enough to get back on my feet, then I'd be gone. But then...then I found myself actually wanting to talk to her, to sit with her, found myself liking the fact that I was under her command. Can you believe that? I actually liked following her orders...because I knew she was looking after me."

To Ed's surprise, a strange light came into Envy's eyes, and his face was softened by true affection. "Because that's what she does, you know? We – that is, the people who follow her...our wellbeing comes before everything else. That's just how she works. I mean, she stomps the H-Faction, too," Envy added. "She does a lot of that."

In a sudden flash of understanding, Ed realised why Winry had broken down with he and Al, and why she couldn't let go like that with the people who followed her. No matter how much she trusted them, no matter how much they knew about what had happened to her...she was their leader. And to preserve their peace of mind, she needed to appear calm, collected and above all, in control.

The story of Winry's life – always for others, never for herself.

**oooooooo**

When Ed headed back, he deliberately took the route that would take him past the room that housed the members of the Resistance. Winry's room.

Breda was standing guard and Ed would place money Scar had suggested it. The redhead turned as Ed drew nearer, his eyes carefully blank.

"Judging by your lack of reaction when our Commander revealed her tattoos, I assume you already know what happened to her?" Breda asked.

"I know," Ed admitted. "Al does, too."

Breda nodded. "It was only a matter of time. After all, you can't know the new Winry without knowing what changed her."

For a moment, Ed wondered how Breda could understand that. Then he reminded himself that Breda had only recently reunited with his old comrades, so he would certainly know what it was like to have a friend become a stranger.

Ed mused on how easy it was to write Breda off as a muscle-bound idiot with no brain to speak of. But such a thought couldn't be farther from the truth – Breda was one of the most cunning men Ed had ever met, with a knack for seeing more than people thought.

"In some ways, what happened to her made her a better leader," Breda reflected. "It meant she could sympathise with brutalised prisoners – meant she could know that what they wanted above all else was a safe place. Meant she could talk to people who might not have looked twice at her otherwise. But in other ways...well, it hardly did her mental health any favours, stopped her from seeking 'comfort', among other things..."

Ed's brow furrowed. "I don't understand. 'Seeking comfort'?"

Breda looked slightly uncomfortable. "On the battlefield, you want to remember that you're not just a killing machine. That the touch of your hands can bring pleasure, not just pain. You'll find on the battlefield, many comrades will 'help' each other rediscover that."

Ed's confusion only deepened.

"Do I have to spell it out for you?" Breda said, exasperated. "Having sex, making love, fucking, rutting...whatever you want to call it, that's what they do. Remember Travis Burns? He and Paninya 'helped' each other. A woman called Lily 'helped' me. Hell, Mustang and Hawkeye 'helped' each other during the Ishbal war."

Ed blinked, trying to resist the graphic images suddenly springing to life in his head. "Mustang and Hawkeye? But then why is there still so much...tension...between them?"

"They kid themselves it ended when the Ishbal war ended," Breda snorted. "Like we're stupid or something. When they're around each other, they practically ooze undying devotion."

Ed laughed. They did, at that. There had been a reason Wrath chose Riza as his hostage, after all.

Still, it was strange to think of people like Paninya and Breda doing things like that. Breda had said most people fighting on the front lines needed such an outlet, but Ed just couldn't comprehend it – he couldn't understand how anyone could be that cold, that business-like about sex.

Some small, selfish part of him was glad Winry had never sought 'comfort', as Breda had put it. Ed told himself firmly he shouldn't be thinking like that – it was petty and jealous. If anything, he should be saddened by the news she had never engaged in such activities – it showed how deeply the memory of her rape still affected her. On the other hand, he didn't think it would have really helped Winry any for her first experience with consensual sex to be...something like that.

When he finally went back to his bed Ed couldn't help but think that, after those conversations, it would be even longer before he fell asleep.

**oooooooo**

_AN: As always, this chapter is free of stupid mistakes and OOC-ness by the grace of LaughingAstarael, my wonderful beta._


	10. Departure

**Chapter 10**

**Departure**

"What's this?" Envy asked, regarding the block of chocolate with undisguised suspicion.

It occurred to Ed that – as Envy had only started eating when he joined the Resistance, and taking into account the Resistance was fighting on the front lines and would have had no time for luxuries like sweets – Envy had no experience with things like chocolate.

"This is chocolate," Winry told him, dividing the block between Ed, Al, Paninya, Scar, Envy and herself. They were sitting around a cafeteria table, having just eaten breakfast. Winry had swiped the block of chocolate from the kitchen store.

"It tastes very nice," Winry added. "But it's not very good for you, so don't eat too much."

"I'm not a kid," Envy growled, sounding very similar to a sulking schoolboy.

"Didn't say you were, I was just telling you that's it's not particularly healthy."

But Envy taken a bite from his piece, and Ed could see Winry's words barely registered as chocolate touched his tongue for the first time. Purple eyes widened in surprise, then Envy began to devour the chocolate in a whirlwind of motion.

"Don't eat so fast!" Winry snapped, yanking his hand away from his mouth. "You'll be sick!"

For a moment, she looked so much like a mother scolding her child (complete with Envy's scowl and reluctant obedience) that Ed was hard-pressed to keep from laughing out loud.

"This is good!" Envy murmured indistinctly around a mouthful of chocolate. "Really good...what's in this?"

"It's a dairy product," Paninya explained.

"No kidding? Doesn't taste at all like milk or cheese..."

Winry smiled and wandered a small distance away, nibbling on her piece of chocolate with more moderation than Envy. The cafeteria didn't boast much of a view, but as she sat on the windowsill and stared out at the sky, it wasn't the view Winry was interested in. She just needed to sit apart from those across the room for a moment, just to gather herself...

"Are you okay?"

Winry didn't startle – her sharp ears had already alerted her to Ed and Al's approach. The younger Elric's footsteps were not accompanied by the sound of clanking metal as they once would have been – it was one of those things that just struck her out of nowhere to remind her Al was back in his body and cause a smile to hover on her face.

"I'm fine," she said, one arm rising to rest on her bent leg. "Just thinking."

"No, I mean..." Al looked uncomfortable. "Are you okay with...with what happened yesterday?"

Winry stiffened, Hira's face flashing before her eyes. Being hurled towards him from the prisoner transport truck...strapped to a table as he prepared to tattoo the circle on her chest...smiling as he gave her an order of assassination...and finally, towering over him as he cowered in the dirt.

Hira had been a long-nursed terror, a spectre in her nightmares, a private bogeyman...and then, to see him like that...it was almost a let-down. He wasn't a monster, he wasn't some hideous being of unspeakable evil...he was just a twisted, cowardly man.

"I'm a little shaken," Winry admitted. "I could have killed him...I _wanted_ to...but I didn't. I think that proves, more than anything, that I can get past this. That my memories don't rule me. I mean, they say our experiences makes us who we are, but I don't believe that. It's how we react to our experiences that makes us who we are. I can try to move on...or I can curl up and die. And I'm going to move on."

In that charged moment, Ed didn't trust himself to speak. Once again, he found himself in awe of Winry's strength and courage.

"And by the way," Winry continued, turning towards them. "Thank you...for letting me collapse on you that day. I think...I think I'd been holding that in for a while. It helped...to tell someone, you know?"

Then, to the surprise of both brothers, Winry reached out, looped an arm around each of their necks and hugged them tightly. They returned the embrace readily, but were surprised again when Winry laughed.

"What's funny?" Ed asked.

"Nothing much," Winry giggled. "Just wondering...five years ago...did you ever think we'd end up like this?"

"Not really," Ed said ruefully.

"I didn't either...but I think it's okay anyway."

**oooooooo**

When Winry next strode from the negotiations room, her expression was exultant. She looked ecstatic, flushed with triumph as a broad grin stretched her lips.

"They believe me!" Winry laughed. "Finally, they believe me! The Resistance and the Dissidents are going to cooperate fully, and I'll leave with a whole train of supply trucks."

She seemed so happy that Ed's spirits lifted as hers did, but he still couldn't help the slight pang that struck somewhere in his chest at the thought of Winry leaving. But she had a duty, a responsibility that was more important that anything he might say to try to sway her...

For the first time, he thought he understood why Winry had been crying when he and Al burned their house down. They had been forced to leave her behind, to go where she couldn't follow...

But this time, wasn't it possible that he and Al could follow _her_?

**oooooooo**

"Breda?"

The redhead turned at the sound of his name, easily spotting Winry walking towards him down the corridor. "Something you need, Commander?"

"I take it you heard the good news?"

Breda nodded. Negotiations were over, which meant they'd be returning to Rush Valley soon. It was disappointing – to spend so little time with his friends after so many years of separation – but if Winry needed him back in Rush Valley, he would follow her back there willingly.

"Do you know Major General Mustang has allowed Ed and Al to come with us? He says it's a good will gesture, something that's meant to show the Dissidents are serious about cooperating with the Resistance," she said, grinning. "But I think he just made that up to give Ed and Al an excuse to follow me."

Breda snorted a light laugh.

"But what I was wondering," Winry continued, "is whether or not you'd like to stay here?"

Breda blinked. He hadn't expected that. While some part of him wanted to say yes, his sense of honour compelled him to say, "I don't want to abandon you."

"That's not what I asked you," Winry observed in a level voice. "It's quite simple; do you want to stay, or not?"

"Well, a lot of my friends are here," Breda admitted. "And after the war, I'd really like to..."

Winry laughed again. "Then you should stay. We can call it an equal good will gesture – show we're just as serious as about the alliance as the Dissidents are."

The twinkle in her eye betrayed her serious words. She knew Breda had wanted to stay, and felt she owed it to him to give him what he wanted. With the Resistance soon to be disbanded (as soon as the remnants of H-Faction were dealt with), she saw no real need to keep him bound to her.

And most of all, she understood the burning desire to be with friends you hadn't seen in years.

**oooooooo**

They departed early, when the rising sun was just beginning to clear the horizon. While Ed grumbled and insisted that it was 'an ungodly hour to be awake', Winry could tell he and Al were pleased to be going with her.

It was certainly a change from the days when he and Al would return for repairs then leave as soon as possible. But Winry understood that, like her, they hadn't wanted to leave. But their duty – their quest – had forced them to, as her responsibilities as Commander forced her to now.

Ironic that when their quest ended, hers had already begun.

Winry clasped Armstrong's wrist in the age-old gesture of both greeting and farewell between soldiers. Traditionally showing respect and a certain amount of familiarity, she repeated the gesture with Fuery.

But when she clasped Riza's arm, she took the opportunity to pull the older woman aside. Just a small distance, just enough so they wouldn't be overheard. Winry had been watching Riza during her stay, and a sneaking suspicion had long been forming in her mind.

She didn't waste time. "It happened to you, didn't it?"

Riza's throat tightened. She didn't know what she had expected when Winry took her aside, but it wasn't this. But Winry couldn't know...could she?

Riza decided to play dumb. "What happened to me?"

"The same thing that happened to me."

For a moment, Riza was certain she had misheard. Winry...Winry couldn't have meant...

But the hard glint in Winry's eyes told Riza she had understood the younger girl perfectly. The most prevalent emotion shaking her usually-calm demeanour was astonishment – that this woman in front of her could have endured what she had endured. To look at Winry, no one would ever think something like that could ever have happened to her...

But some part of Riza also felt relieved. The women like her, the ones she'd seen in the camps, had always been scared, shadowed, haunted...broken. Since her escape, she'd never met one who had moved past it. Riza herself was the only person she knew of who was so much as functioning, and it was a relief to see Winry, who had suffered as she had suffered, not only functioning but thriving.

"How?"

Winry didn't need to ask what she was talking about it. "Don't be fooled, I'm not entirely over it. I cried my eyes out in Ed and Al's arms the other day. The trick is, never think you'll forget it. You won't. Don't think you can be like you were before it happened. You can't. But you _do_ learn to live with it, to live through and past it. Eventually, it's just a shadow in the back of your mind. It won't leave, not really, but it _will_ fade."

"I had help, too," Winry admitted. "My friends helped me. Being the Resistance Commander, I had to interact with a lot of people, even when I just wanted to crawl under some blankets somewhere and hide. And that helped – forcing myself to be with people, to talk with them and argue with them and just be with them – made the wound fade a little. Friends and comrades help by just being there, being there and being themselves."

Five seconds of silence. Winry's eyes looked as ancient as if she had lived a thousand centuries, and in a sense, Riza supposed it was true. Winry had changed so much, been so many people over the years...a thousand lives in the space of a single lifetime.

"Paninya...was always there for me," Winry said softly. "Supporting me, backing me up...giving me confidence and reassurance. Breda was always cheering me up with his good humour, Scar and his warrior code showed me I still deserved to be treated with honour and respect, and Envy...his playful flirtations showed me I was still desirable, I wasn't tainted. And he was...safe, you know? I knew that if I ever told him to stop – really, stop – he would."

Riza seemed to be digesting her words, and Winry couldn't help adding another recommendation. Perhaps it was her feminine side – weren't all women supposed to be instinctive matchmakers?

"You should talk to Roy. He probably feels very guilty about it."

Riza started, testament to how deep the reverie she'd sunk into had been. "Guilty? But why would he-?"

"Your friends always feel guilty for it," Winry told her. "It's ridiculous, but it's what they feel."

Then, with a smile and a soft brush of fingers over Riza's hand, Winry stepped away.

She shook hands with Roy with an air of formality.

"It's been an...interesting experience," Roy said diplomatically, the faintest hint of a smile tugging at his lips.

"Likewise," Winry laughed, her gaze flickering to Riza. She was pleased to note Roy's eyes following the path hers had already taken, lingering on the blonde woman with an air of yearning.

Winry deliberately lowered her voice so they wouldn't be heard amid the tumult of loud farewells around them. "It wasn't your fault."

Roy's eyes swung to her again, puzzlement clear in their obsidian irises. "Wha-?"

"You aren't to blame for what happened," Winry said. "What happened, happened, and you can't change it. What you can change is how it affects her, how you help her."

She made sure to make her voice as serious as possible when she told him, "Talk to Riza."

Then she released his hand and turned to Breda, the only one she hadn't farewelled. He didn't reach for her hand, but instead swept her up into a hug reminiscent of Armstrong's powerful embraces. Winry controlled the urge to flinch away and instead returned the gesture. Touched as Winry was by this uncharacteristic show of affection, though, the need for oxygen asserted itself and disrupted the moment.

"Breda..." she wheezed, "I need some of those ribs you're cracking."

Breda released her instantly, blushing lightly. "Sorry."

"Don't be. At least someone around here appreciates me," Winry laughed.

"I appreciate you plenty, Pidgeon," Envy leered from behind them.

"Do you ever miss an opportunity for innuendo?" Winry snapped. "This is a touching farewell here, so butt out!"

Envy snorted and turned away. Breda chuckled in spite of himself.

"Look after yourself, Winry."

"You, too," Winry said, then added with a touch of both mischief and affection, "Consider it my final order."

Breda slapped his open palm against the left side of his chest. "Understood, Commander!"

He held the salute until Winry returned it, then relaxed.

And then Winry climbed into the truck, the engine started, and with a rumble and a roar, Winry, Ed, Al, Paninya, Envy and Scar were gone – disappearing into the dawn at the head of a long convoy of supply trucks.

**oooooooo**

Roy and Riza were so caught up in their own thoughts they never realised that the people around them were leaving. Like smoke in the wind, the crowd in the courtyard slowly dispersed, vanishing into the buildings around them.

When their surroundings finally filtered through their well of concentration, it was with the startling realisation that they were alone. Together.

Riza stared at Roy. He fidgeted under her gaze, as though he were waiting for some sort of dismissal before he could leave, even though he was the superior officer.

_'Talk to him.'_

Winry's advice hummed through her head, as annoyingly persistent as a mosquito buzzing near her ear. Some part of Riza wanted to ignore it, to go on as she had before...but another part of her longed for Winry's easy, confident bearing – as though no one could doubt her, as though she had never been abused and violated. Riza remembered when she was like that. She wanted to be like that again.

_'Talk to him.'_

What could it hurt?

"She was raped, too, you know?"

Riza's tone was so conversational that her actual sentence didn't register with Roy at first. When it did, his heart kicked against his ribs like an angry horse.

It was the first time either of them had actually admitted what happened to her. There was always the sense that as long as they never said it, never named it, then it wasn't real. But Riza had named it, named the terror and called it down on their heads.

Roy's mouth moved, but no sound emerged.

"You'd never know, would you?" Riza continued, her tone thoughtful. "She's trying to work through it. It's inspiring, in a way."

Roy was still trying to get his tongue to work.

"She gave me advice – good advice, I think. And she also mentioned something interesting...she said that you might be feeling guilty about what happened."

Roy couldn't help thinking it was so typically Riza; having the guts to face the problem head-on while he was still dithering about it.

"So...do you?" Riza asked, looking directly at him. "Feel guilty?"

His first impulse was to lie. But while he often made a habit of dishonesty, he'd never been able to truly lie to Riza's face.

"Of course I feel guilty," he said flatly. He just needed to make sure his voice stayed level and his tone stayed flat...even if his voice felt as brittle as a dry cracker. "It was my fault, I sent you there..."

Fury; unreasoning, illogical, savage fury welled in Riza, flooding her body like a wave after a dam had burst. She was suddenly, inexplicably angry that he would feel this way, that he would wallow in his own guilt, that he would entertain for even a moment the idea that it was his fault...

_'The way I did...'_ Riza's thoughts whispered to her. _'The way I did, the way I blamed myself. If I had only been stronger, smarter, faster...then they would never have...'_

She had slapped him before she truly realised what she was doing. On some level that was frightening to Riza – to lose control like that. Control is the primary facet of a sniper's existence; to see the target, to watch for an opening, to see the opening and take it when the order is given...

But perhaps that was the point. She wasn't Riza the sniper here, she was Riza the woman, who had just learned the man she loved felt guilty for her rape.

So she didn't apologise for the slap.

"It was _not_ your fault!" she hissed, her voice low but with as much urgency as a scream. "I knew the risks, I knew what happened to captured women, I knew...and I still chose to go along. I still chose to get involved. I still chose..."

Her throat was closed off, choked with memories, memories of fear, desperation and horrific, tearing pain. She could feel the slight sting of tears in her eyes and sat down heavily on the steps, swallowing in an effort to keep herself under control.

Funny...five years ago, she couldn't imagine doing anything like this. But now...how many nights had she woken from a nightmare, screaming in silence, and ended up shedding tears into Black Hayate's fur?

Roy stared at her, at the tears pooling in the corners of her eyes, at the way her throat worked as she tried desperately to maintain control and wondered if he had ever loved her quite so much or quite so deeply.

He lowered himself beside Riza and watched her struggle with herself. He started to reach out to her, then he remembered and his hand stuttered in the air. Steeling himself for rejection, he rested his hand on her shoulder, his fingers moving in small circles against the fabric of her jacket.

Riza didn't flinch or back away or throw his hand off. For a moment, she didn't do anything. Then her hand rose and closed around his. Roy expected her to gently move his hand away, to politely and coolly decline his offer of comfort...but she didn't. She just held his hand on her shoulder, her thumb running across the back of his hand.

It wasn't exactly a lover's embrace...but it was enough.

"It never really ended with the Ishbal war, did it?" Roy mused.

Riza met his eyes, moisture still gleaming beneath her eyelashes. "No, it didn't."

It wasn't exactly a declaration of undying love and devotion...but it was enough.

**oooooooo**

_AN: As always, the smooth reading and lack of grammatical errors can be credited to LaughingAstarael._


	11. White Star

**Chapter 11**

**White Star**

"Home, sweet home!" Paninya laughed, jumping out of the truck before it had even stopped moving.

Winry disembarked in a more moderate fashion – stepping instead of jumping, and waiting until the vehicle was completely stationary. But before Ed and Al's feet had so much as touched the ground, she had already started shouting orders at the people around them, ordering Envy and Scar to oversee the unloading of the supplies, giving Paninya the responsibility of seeing to an even distribution among the people.

"Where are you going?" Envy asked.

His voice wasn't snide or mocking or implying that she wasn't doing her share of the work. It was honestly curious, the way someone would ask a friend where they were going so they could seek them out later. Envy's genuine attachment to Winry never failed to surprise Ed.

"I'm going to check on Travis, Christa and Kyle," Winry tossed over her shoulder, already starting up the street. Ed and Al had to jog to keep up.

"Sorry about dragging you guys around like this before I even take you to the room," Winry said, knocking on the door of the huge concrete building. "But I really need to know how these guys held up..."

The door opened, and Winry was suddenly swept up into an enthusiastic hug by Travis – they could see the moment when she stifled the urge to strike out at him – the man crushing her to his chest as he babbled wildly.

"She had the baby, she had the baby, she had the baby!"

"Christa?" Winry gasped, and Ed and Al didn't even see how she managed to free herself from Travis's arms so quickly. "Really? Is she okay? Is the baby okay? Is it a boy or a girl? What name did she and Kyle decide on? What-?"

"Easy, Commander," came a voice from the corridor behind them.

Kyle stepped from the corridor, coming to stand beside his brother-in-law. "Yes, she really had the baby, she's fine, the baby's fine, the baby's a girl, and the name...well, we wanted to talk to you about that."

There was a slightly dopey grin on Kyle's face that reminded Winry strongly of Maes Hughes. She couldn't help wondering if a camera would be a suitable birthday present for him next year...

"You remember Ed and Al, right?" she added, hastily presenting the Elric brothers.

Kyle and Travis both nodded, and the four men shook hands automatically, with Al (being the more vocal of the two blondes) offering his congratulations.

"Did I hear someone say 'Winry'?" came a voice from inside the building, and Kyle and Travis parted like the Red Sea to let the new mother through.

Winry's first thought was that motherhood agreed with Christa. The young woman was walking with an extra spring in her step, and radiated the quiet sense of calm dignity that some mothers did. The small, blanket-wrapped bundle in her arms squirmed slightly, making gurgling noises.

"Good to see you, Winry," Christa beamed. "Meet our new addition to the Resistance."

And she placed the baby in Winry's arms. Winry yelped, clutching the tiny burden to her chest, adjusting her hold she could look into the little girl's face.

"Oh..." Winry sighed, taking in the small mop of red hair and bright green eyes. "She's beautiful."

The baby squinted her eyes at Winry, then made a soft, almost giggling noise of approval.

"What's her name?" Winry asked again.

Christa smiled and leaned into her husband's embrace. "We wanted to talk to you about that, Winry."

"Yeah?" Winry's eyes were slightly puzzled, obviously wondering why they would need to talk to her about naming their child.

"We'd like to name her Winry."

Winry froze. "Really? Winry Seren...that sounds nice..."

She was smiling broadly, and Ed thought everyone around them could see that Winry was honestly touched. She probably considered it a real honour, having her friends name their child after her...

"We thought it fit," Christa said softly. "Winry...you're the reason this child is here. You saved our lives; without you we wouldn't be here, the entire Resistance wouldn't be here...and our beautiful daughter wouldn't be here either. It seemed fitting, to give her your name."

"Winry Seren..." Winry mused, passing the baby back to her mother. Then she blinked, and the delighted woman was gone, with the hardened Commander in her place. "Did anything else happen while I was away?"

"There was an attack," Travis stated, his elation at the birth of his niece vanishing as grim lines appeared around his mouth.

Winry swore. "Bad?"

"Not really. The doc's been running himself ragged, though."

Winry cursed again. "I'll check on him."

Ed and Al could do nothing but follow.

**oooooooo**

"Miracle-worker?"

Marcoh looked up, his bloodshot eyes and haggard appearance telling Ed just how much pressure the doctor had been under.

"Commander," he acknowledged.

"How are you holding up?"

Marcoh shook his head, and Ed was surprised to see something close to a snarl twisting the older man's face. "I lost two of them before they were even on the beds, another three while I was working on them. If I could only..."

Ed wasn't really listening. He was gazing around at this room that obviously served as the Resistance's infirmary, deeply shocked by this realisation of just how desperately the Resistance needed those supplies.

While Dr. Marcoh obviously did his best, his equipment was limited to only the basics – sutures, bandages, scalpels, tourniquets and the most simplistic of medication were all he had. Tattered material hung from ropes strung across the ceiling, and Ed assumed they served as curtains shielding the patient's beds from view.

He dragged his mind back to the conversation. He wasn't a part of it – in fact, Ed and Al seemed to have been largely ignored since their arrival as everyone focused on Winry – but he wanted to know about Winry's life here, and figured listening in on conversations was as good a method of picking things up as any.

"...and you were contacted by Belladonna," Marcoh continued, pulling a small letter out of his pocket.

"Belladonna?" Al echoed.

"A spy in the H-Faction," Winry explained. "We've recalled most of our people, but Belladonna's base of operations still hasn't fallen to either the Resistance or the Dissidents yet, so she'll be there for a while."

There was no real address on the envelope, simply two words printed neatly in red ink.

"White Star..." Ed read aloud. "What does that mean?"

"That's my codename," Winry answered absently, tucking the letter into her jacket. "I need to get this down to intelligence so they can start decoding it..."

And once again, all Ed and Al could do was trail after her.

**oooooooo**

They spent most of the day like that, following Winry across Rush Valley as she watched over her people, issued a few orders, and in general made her presence felt again. Ed watched her...and couldn't help but think how everything had turned out so differently to what he'd expected.

He could admit that, before they'd come here for the first time, he'd felt like they were going to ride to Winry's rescue like the proverbial knights in shining armour. But upon their arrival...he'd felt like the knight that just charged into the keep, only to find the princess had slain the dragon herself and gone back home.

It was a strange feeling, and found himself wondering why he'd fought to accompany her to Rush Valley in the first place. It wasn't like Winry really _needed_ them here...

Then Winry dismissed the last of her officials, turned to them, and flashed a brilliant smile, for all that it was weary and exhausted.

And Ed remembered why he had come along. Winry didn't need their company...but she _wanted_ it.

"I'm really sorry about this," Winry said, looking contrite. "Dragging you guys around for the entire day...do you want to go to Last Hope or to the room?"

At the moment, Ed found he honestly didn't care. Al echoed his sentiments when he asked, "Which would you prefer, Winry?"

"Honestly? I want to go to bed, I feel pretty drained. But if you guys want to do something else..."

"No, we're fine with just dropping off to sleep," Ed said honestly. Before today, he wouldn't have thought following Winry around could be exhausting, but it was.

"Extra mattresses have been put down in my room," she was muttering, striding into the concrete building that served as the Resistance's headquarters and leading them down the corridor. "It might be a tight fit, but I think we'll manage."

"Are you posting a guard, Vharla?" a deep voice asked from behind them.

Ed and Al whirled, their hearts leaping in shock, but Winry simply sighed as she turned to Scar.

"Tell me," she addressed the Ishbalan in an acerbic voice. "Did you train to sneak around and pop up at the weirdest times, or does it just come naturally?"

Scar simply raised his eyebrows and repeated his previous question. "Have you posted a guard?"

"No," Winry said, sounding exasperated. But there was a hint of affection in her tone as she added, "Feel free to take the position. Just remember to change every four hours."

Scar nodded curtly, and as Winry led them into the room Ed saw him settling himself in the hallway, leaning against the wall like a hawk hovering over the nest. Menacing, but reassuring in a strange way.

Ed never thought he'd see the day when he thought Scar's presence reassuring. But it had become so...perhaps because the Ishbalan was so obviously intent on protecting Winry, a cause Ed could certainly empathise with.

As he walked inside Winry's room, Ed got a shock. He didn't know what he had been expecting, but it certainly wasn't this.

Winry's room was small and poorly furnished, barely illuminated by the single bare bulb in the ceiling. A rack of knives, guns and other weapons was mounted on the far wall, the metal catching the light. A sagging bookcase sported several thin, tattered volumes – some mechanical reference books, others small novels. On the bottom shelf there rested a toolbox held together with twine, several clockwork toys and bits and pieces of machinery. A large bucket of water stood in the corner, and Ed found himself wondering what it was for. Three mattresses rested on the bare floor, covered by a few ragged blankets.

In that moment, Ed truly realised how little the Resistance had to survive on, and found himself thinking back to Marcoh's medical supplies. Or more precisely, the lack of such supplies.

Winry seemed embarrassed by the lack of basic comforts, but Ed thought it made her all the more amazing – that she managed such sparse resources and still commanded such loyalty from her people.

Al seemed to be thinking along much the same lines. "You must be a good leader, Winry."

Winry stared at him, small wrinkles between her eyebrows showing her confusion.

"To have people who are so loyal to you," Al continued. "I mean, I know that when resources on one side get scarce, some people tend to defect to the other simply because they'll be taken care of. But everyone here is so loyal to you-"

Winry snorted. "I wouldn't put much stock by that. Most of the people in the Resistance have been in H-Faction's prison camps, so I'm just the lesser of the two evils."

"I don't think so," Al said quietly. "Have you seen the way everyone looks at you, Winry? They truly believe you're the best leader to follow, and most of them don't seem to be the type who'd just follow the lesser evil. Scar, for example."

"Scar's a special case," Winry mused, sprawling out on her makeshift bed. "I told you about managing to persuade him to join us – I'm still not sure exactly how I did, by the way – and then he seemed to decide he liked us and he was staying. Plus, I helped him get his revenge on Kimblee, and I think that went a long way to settling his psyche, so to speak..."

"_You did what?_" Ed yelped. He hadn't heard _this_ part of the story.

"Kimblee was captured during one of the H-Factions attacks," Winry shrugged. "I could have ordered him executed with the others, but by then, Scar had told me a bit about his life and I knew that Kimblee was pretty much single-handedly responsible for most of Scar's misconceptions about State Alchemists and the military in general. So I told him he would decide Kimblee's fate."

"Did Scar kill him?" Al breathed, looking horrified at the concept.

"Of course he killed him," Winry said, her eyes fixed on the ceiling, looking almost regretful. "As ugly as it seems, sometimes that's the only way to bury your demons. And I think it really helped Scar...gave him some of his balance back, you know?"

The truly frightening thing was, Ed _did_ know. He could imagine how destroying the man responsible for your sorrows would be cathartic.

"But I'm beat," Winry said bluntly, standing to turn off the light. "Let's go to sleep, and we can talk more in the morning."

She flicked the switch, and the tiny room was plunged into darkness, silent but for the soft sound of three bodies breathing gently.

**oooooooo**

Ed was dimly aware of a siren, a howling wail that drifted to him through the mires of sleep. He knew he should wake up, but couldn't seem to summon the energy...

"_Wake up!_" Winry's voice bellowed. "_We're under attack!_"

Awareness came in a dizzying rush as Ed's eyes snapped open. Al was rising from the mattress beside him and Winry loomed over them both, a dark shape silhouetted by the dim moonlight filtering in through the window. Ed was surprised at the speed with which she readied herself for battle. Blades, guns, alchemical wrist guards...all were thrown on in the space of three seconds, with the ease of long practice.

He and Al could do nothing but struggle into their boots, stagger to their feet and follow Winry as she charged from the building with Scar, Envy and Paninya at her heels.

The night was utter chaos. People ran in all directions, screams and shouted orders filled the air with the sound of desperation. It wasn't like the raid on the prison camp, it wasn't a calm, planned strategy executed with minimal casualties. This was a battle in the most visceral sense, with their very lives on the line. Survival of the fittest; fight or die.

"_Where's the attack?_" Winry yelled, trying to make herself heard over the noise.

"_In the Fifth Sector!_" Paninya shouted back.

Winry nodded, then clapped her wrist guards together, the circles touching and crackling with electricity, her voice rising above the anarchy of the people around them in a desperate scream.

"_TO ME!_"

Ed didn't know how she did it, what alchemical transmutation precipitated such a reaction, but white lightning burst from Winry's skin, crackling no more than an inch from her flesh. White energy surrounded her until she shone like a lighthouse beacon in the dark.

Ed suddenly understood why her code name was White Star. She looked like a bright star that had fallen to earth in a glow of heavenly light. And people responded, rushing to her call and her light like a swarm of ants.

Commands shot from Winry's lips like bullets, as accurate and effective as a sniper's aim. Some were instructed to keep those unable to fight out of the battle, others were guided in the direction of the attack, and Ed and Al found themselves swept up in the rush of bodies.

For a moment, they lost sight of anyone they knew, the press of people around them like a wall in front of their eyes. But then there was a shift in the crowd around them, and Envy appeared beside them.

"Here's a tip, Fullmetal," he sneered. "Stay away from this."

Ed's equilibrium was already thrown by the sudden rush of adrenaline so soon after awakening, and Envy's words had him thoroughly riled. "We're just as good at fighting as most of the people here."

Envy didn't snort, but the skeptical expression on his face shouted his disbelief. "Oh, yeah? Trained in what? Sparring? That's child's play. This is an adult's battle, Fullmetal. Kill or be killed. No place for children here."

"Winry's the same age as us," Ed retorted, stung. "And we've fought in real battles before – we even took on an Angel of Death!"

"Oh, forgive me," Envy sneered, every syllable dripping sarcasm. "One battle in all these years of war – you're veterans."

Ed gritted his teeth and mentally recited the all reasons he shouldn't punch Envy. "We've been training since we were ten years old!" he spat. "Not even Winry has been training herself for that long!"

Envy laughed. "Compared to Winry, you're newborns. Compared to Winry, everyone here is a child. There's nothing to equal her training – she kills as easily as she breathes."

His words shook Ed, a slight tremor passing through his body at the idea of how much Winry's training must have pained her. Winry, who prized her ability to heal above all others, being forced to learn to kill with the same consummate skill as she had once healed. She had told him, but he hadn't truly known...why was it he never realised these things the first time around?

They hit the battlefield, and Ed saw what Envy meant when he said no one could equal Winry. She had extinguished the light that wrapped her skin – undoubtedly in an attempt not to attract enemy fire – but she still seemed to glow. That was how much she stood out from the others as she fought.

She was so quick, so cold and calculating, so chillingly efficient, and she spent a minimum of energy on each attack. A spray of bullets, a knife drawn across a man's throat, a dagger hurled into a soldier's skull, lightning spearing across the night and roasting a entire line of attackers.

It was brutal, violent, horrifying...and at the same, it was terrifyingly beautiful, each movement possessing the same lethal grace as a cobra's dance. Some part of Ed's mind noted that the Angel of Death he had killed hadn't possessed the same hypnotically fluid way of moving – it seemed unique, something Winry alone was capable of.

Ed couldn't help noticing that some others were fighting like her. None with her level of skill or inherent grace, but he could recognise the same basic style. He supposed they must be the half-trained Angels Winry had escaped from Angel's Nest with.

He lost Envy for a moment in the fray – he and Al were fighting side by side, kicking people down, hurling them aside and transmuting pillars of rock from the ground to drop entire squads of soldiers – but then the man swam into view once more. He was using his inhuman speed and strength against his enemies, with obvious success. A simple elbow jab could snap ribs like toothpicks, and when he smashed a man's head against a wall it shattered like an empty eggshell. He was so fast he could land in the middle of a pack of eight men and have five on the ground before any of them had even managed to swing a punch.

Scar was fighting beside Paninya, seizing random body parts and detonating them whenever any H-Faction soldier was foolish enough to come within reach. The weapons in Paninya's legs were wreaking havoc, and she was spraying her opponents with bullets from another gun hidden in her mechanical hand.

And then it was over. Just over, with every H-Faction soldier dead or dying. There was no gradual slowing of the battle – it just stopped; raging one moment, non-existent the next. Ed's breath rasped in his throat, the air feeling painfully cold in his lungs. He concentrated on breathing deeply, trying to calm the adrenaline that still roared through his veins, and he knew Al was was doing the same beside him.

Paninya approached them, her clothing sticky with sweat and a bruise rising on her cheek.

"How long were we fighting?" Al asked, shaking his hair from his face.

Ed didn't even see where Paninya produced the watch from. "Oh, I'd say about ten minutes or so."

Al choked in astonishment, and Paninya thumped him helpfully on the back.

"Winry?" Ed said quietly, his eyes scanning the area.

Paninya pointed. Winry was in the middle of the battlefield, ordering the wounded ushered to the infirmary and the dead carried to the graveyard. As they watched, she swept her eyes over the carnage as though mentally calculating something.

"Approximation?" she called.

Ed didn't know where the voice came from, but it rang out loud and clear. "Twenty-two dead, thirty injured."

Winry looked around again. "With eighty-odd H-Faction dead I'd say that's a definite win for us. They must be getting desperate to attack like that."

"Stromson!" she yelled.

A small brunette woman gave the Resistance salute. "Commander?"

"Make a report of this attack to the Dissidents – as long as the communication lines are open we might as well make use of them."

Another critical glance at the massacre, at the bodies strewn about like broken dolls. Something in Ed's stomach wrenched at the coldness in her gaze.

"We'll need to take care of the H-Faction dead," Winry finally announced.

A suggestion was thrown from the throng. "Dump them outside the city and leave them to rot!"

Winry shook her head. "No, that's what the H-Faction would do. And we want to be different from our enemies, don't we? Or how will we look in the mirror and say that better people than they were victorious? We'll burn them, as usual."

Winry turned away from the people piling the carcasses on her orders, and approached Ed and Al for the first time since the battle had begun. And the Elric brothers got their first good look at her since they lost sight of her in the crush.

She was covered in blood, the red liquid splattered and sprayed across her clothes like gruesome paint. It clumped strands of her hair together as it congealed, tainting the soft gold with streaks of red-black, like some sort of strange dye. She was so immersed in the substance it was impossible to tell if she had any injuries of her own.

Her eyes looked distant, almost vacant, and she had to blink several times before she seemed to truly _see_ them.

"Well, that was exciting," she deadpanned. "Now I'm going back to bed."

For what seemed like the thousandth time, Ed and Al could do nothing but follow.

**oooooooo**

Ed and Al sat on their mattresses, completely motionless, as they waited for Winry to return. She had dropped them off at the room and taken her own detour to the showers, saying she needed to clean herself up. Ed and Al hadn't argued; blood practically hung in a cloud over her.

And they hadn't argued because some part of them wanted to be away from her. To be apart from this woman they had never really known.

Ed knew that Winry had killed people, knew that she would be forced to kill more people before this war was truly over...but to see how cold she was about the act of murder, how easily she took it in stride sent a chill down Ed's spine. As calmly as a child might step on an anthill, Winry had organised the massacre of over eighty men and women.

The door creaked open and Winry stepped in, her hair still damp from the shower. She was wearing clean clothes, the bloodied ones folded in her arms. She dropped them into the bucket of water as she passed, the casual action shocking Ed as much as anything. It showed how much killing had become a part of her life, that it would invade her room with weapons of death on the shelves and a bucket of cold water to soak blood out of her clothes.

Winry dropped onto her mattress, pulled the blankets over her thin form and closed her eyes.

"Goodnight, Ed, goodnight, Al," she murmured.

Ed didn't reply. He didn't even look at her. Some part of him wondered if he could ever look at Winry again.

**oooooooo**

A strange smell hung in the air the next day, like fat frying in a pan. Like meat roasting on an open fire.

"Is someone cooking bacon?" Ed asked, sniffing the air.

Winry gave him a strange look, and something shifted in her eyes. "Ed, we burned the H-Faction corpses last night...that smell is the smell of burnt flesh and melted fat."

That calm, casual, matter-of-fact tone broke something inside of him. Something snapped like a rubber band stretched too tightly, something dark and monstrous and enraged at this woman who had taken _his_ Winry and replaced her with someone who could kill as easily as other people breathed and apparently give it no more thought.

"How can you be so cold?"

Winry's eyes flickered, something unreadable creeping into them. "What do you mean by that?"

The cool tone of her voice should have warned him. But Ed had never been much for warnings, and ploughed ahead regardlessly of what might be in his path or what he might trample underfoot.

"_You killed people, Winry!_" Ed found himself shrieking. "_You killed people and you didn't care!_"

Al didn't dare say a word. Some extra sense was telling him this was going nowhere good, and he wanted to step in and stop it...but it was like watching a train wreck. He couldn't think of a thing to halt this inevitable progression, and he couldn't bring himself to turn away and run down the street either.

"It was them or us," Winry said quietly. "It had to be done. That's the way of war, Ed."

"It doesn't have to be!" Ed yelled, vaguely aware he was being bitterly childish but unable to stop himself. "When we raided the prison camp we took prisoners, we knocked them out, we didn't kill-"

He knew that wasn't how a war worked – it was a choice between between your life or your opponent's life every day, and if you wanted to keep living you had to keep killing. He had killed during the war himself – if not on the same scale – so he knew it had to be done.

But...to see Winry so indifferent to it...

"So should we have just tried to knock them out?" Winry asked icily. "Never mind the fact that they're trying to kill us, never mind the fact that our hesitation on the battlefield would cost us hundreds of lives, never mind that we don't have the facilities to hold that many prisoners? They'd starve to death, or catch pneumonia or die from their injuries. We have to kill, we don't have the luxury of mercy. If you stay here, you'll realise that."

Ed's mouth moved before his brain had a chance to catch up. "_Maybe we don't want to stay here with a killer!_"

Everything went very quiet. Winry's eyes were like blue glass laid over steel – completely blank, impenetrably shuttered, utterly unreadable.

"Well, you're under no obligation to," Winry said, her voice calm, cold...disinterested. "The supply trucks head back to Central today, you can go with them."

Then she was gone. Like smoke in the wind, like a wish in the darkness...just gone.

**oooooooo**

Even as he threw his bags into the truck, some part of Ed was aware he was being phenomenally stupid. But most of him was still angry, and because anger was an emotion he understood, he clung to it.

"She was so...calm about it," Al repeated for about the hundredth time. "As though it was all part of a day's work..."

Ed didn't answer, mostly because his attention was arrested by the approach of Envy, Paninya and Scar.

"Farewell party?" Ed asked sarcastically.

No one replied. Envy strolled up to them and looked from one to the other for a moment. Then, moving so fast Ed couldn't see the motion, he buried his fist in their stomachs, one in Al's, the other in Ed's.

Ed choked, his lungs seemingly filled with hot cement. He dropped to his knees, barely conscious of Al doing the same, gasping for breath. He was just starting to recover when he was slapped by Paninya, with enough force to leave him running the tip of his tongue over his teeth to check they were still there.

Without any word of explanation, both she and Envy simply turned and walked away. But Ed could guess why they had done it – Winry's inner circle were fiercely protective of her. He slowly regained his feet, half-expecting Scar to knock him into the wall.

But the towering Ishbalan did nothing of the sort. He simply stared at them with something that looked like pity in his eyes, then spoke in a subdued voice that still managed to ring with portent.

"She will not follow you."

Ed blinked.

But Scar didn't seem to require any input on his part, for he continued without breaking his stride, "If you cannot accept her for what she is, if you continue to cling to what you remember her as...she will walk away from you like a snake shedding its skin, without ever looking back and without an ounce of regret. Leave now, and she will not regret it...but you will."

Those heavy words were still ringing in their ears when Ed and Al felt the engine roar to life beneath them as the truck started on its long journey back to Central.

**oooooooo**

_AN: I know, Ed's being a jerk, but I felt he'd have a less-than stellar reaction when confronted by Winry's actual killings, and figured I should show it. The next chapter's better, I promise._

_This chapter is free of error by courtesy of LaughingAstarael._


	12. Reconciliation

**Chapter 12**

**Reconciliation**

_'I am an idiot!' _Ed thought, staring out the window. _'A complete and total idiot.'_

Now why couldn't he have realised that four days earlier? Before he left Rush Valley? Before his mouth ran away with him and said things he couldn't ever take back and that Winry might never forgive him for?

_'I. Am. An. Idiot. Idiot, idiot, idiot, IDIOT.'_

It had taken a while – far longer than it should have, as far as Ed was concerned – but his anger had cooled, and Ed had come to a very important realisation.

Winry _had_ to kill. Yes, there was free will in the most literal sense of the word, but since her choices were kill or die, kill or let the people around her die, Ed knew that wasn't really a choice at all.

Winry was as deeply affected by the killing as he and Al were...she was just better at hiding her reaction. Ed had once thought he was the authority on repressing emotions and unpleasant memories, but a chance encounter involving Scar, Winry and a gun had shown him Winry wrote the book on repression, and as far as she was concerned, he was still in preschool.

Now, as he remembered Winry's confession that night she broke down with he and Al, remembered his own words to her, he felt like a hypocrite.

_'What was I thinking? "Oh, yes, it's all fine and dandy for you to be telling me about killing, but as soon as I actually see you do it, I'll rant and rave and turn my back on you and forget about this whole discussion"? Idiot!'_

Ed had seen how much killing hurt her when she cried in his arms, and he remembered the flicker in her eyes after the battle and when he hurled his accusations at her – as though she were masking her emotions. Because she had to force herself to be distant from those lives, had to force the cold calculation that allowed her to think of people as numbers and percentages.

Winry had to force herself not to care.

He remembered his own nightmares of the man he had killed. They weren't frequent, but they were definitely haunting. And it had to be worse for Winry – when she'd first killed, it had been without even the semblance of choice she killed with later. It had been with no control of her actions, her body...no control of anything. To go through something like that and make a true, conscious decision to kill again...he doubted words could describe it.

His nightmares might be bad, but something told him Winry's were a thousand times worse. In the end, there was nothing Ed could say to her that she hadn't thought herself. And that just made him feel worse.

Ed sighed gustily, silently calling himself an idiot several times over, the litany interspersed with curses and far worse names.

He glanced into the room behind him, at Al lying listlessly on the bed, staring at picture of both brothers and Winry when they were children. Ironically, it was the same picture Ed had found him staring at when he burst into their room with the news that Winry was alive.

It seemed so long ago that they had thought Winry dead. He remembered the chilling emptiness that came with that thought as a sliver of ice down his spine. They had found her alive, alive and unbroken, and then...

Then they'd become angry because she had changed, because she had done what was demanded of her to stay alive.

_'I'm an idiot.'_

Al took one look at his brother's face and knew where his thoughts were. "We've been pretty stupid, haven't we?"

"No argument there," Ed muttered, slumping on his own bed. "And now...now I think we need to do some apologising. Mostly me."

"I didn't stop you," Al said in the interest of fairness. "And you weren't saying anything I hadn't already thought..."

Ed made a small, unintelligible noise, shame pricking at him like a poisoned spur.

"Do you think..do you think Winry will forgive us?" Al asked in a small voice.

Ed didn't answer. He hoped she would, but...Scar's words were bouncing around his mind.

_'She will walk away from you like a snake shedding its skin...'_

Had she walked away? In all honesty, Ed wouldn't blame her – his stomach cringed when he remembered some of the things he'd said to her. And as much as Al tried to share the blame, he knew that the fault in this rested squarely on his shoulders. Al, Winry could and probably would forgive. But him?

"What do we do now?" Al asked when his brother remained silent.

"Now?" Ed sighed, running a hand through his bangs. "Now...I think we..._I_...do some serious crawling."

**oooooooo**

Roy had allowed them the use of a car (but not a driver), and sent them to Rush Valley with the strict instructions that they 'not screw it up _this_ time!' What was worse, Ed could think of no snappy retort that didn't make him look a hypocrite. Everyone in Central probably knew how miserable they were – he and Al hadn't exactly been making any effort to hide it.

They'd growled at co-workers, snapped at subordinates, eaten their meals in stony, hostile silence, glaring at everyone around them. Frankly, Ed had the feeling the Major General would be glad to have them out of his hair. They'd been so distracted they could barely do any work.

But not so distracted that Ed hadn't noticed the way Mustang and Hawkeye were behaving. He thought he'd seen Winry talk to them before they left, and since he and Al's return they seemed...closer, somehow. When he asked Breda about it, the man just tapped his nose in the universal code for keeping a secret and refused to say anything more.

As he started the car and guided it along the road, Ed reflected it really wasn't any of his business. At least, that's what he was going to keep telling himself.

**oooooooo**

Rush Valley was very subdued when they finally arrived. The enormous gates creaked open, and almost immediately Ed was hit with the air of despondent activity, of people doing things they didn't really want to be doing, of subtle, permeating worry.

At first, Ed didn't know what was happening, but then a sickeningly familiar smell drifted to his nose. A smell like burning bacon...

"Another attack?" Al whispered, feeling ill.

"I...I guess so..." Ed muttered.

The people milling around them seemed to be cleaning up – carting rubble away, scrubbing at bloodstained walls, dragging bodies in the direction Ed assumed the graveyard was.

"What are _you_ doing here?"

The sharp voice made Ed jump and spin around. Paninya and Kyle were behind them, shovels and picks slung over their shoulders. Kyle looked downright miserable, but Paninya's expression was pure hostility, and it had been she who had spoken.

"We want to see Winry?" Al said, his statement slowly degenerating to a squeaky question as Paninya glared at him.

"Does _she_ want to see _you_?" Paninya spat. Ed could practically feel the waves of fury rolling off her.

And suddenly, he decided he just didn't have time for this. He needed to see Winry, apologise, take whatever she dished out in return, and then...then Paninya could do whatever she deemed necessary.

"Look, Paninya," he began, and could tell by the look she turned on him that his tone was entirely too authoritative for someone who'd hurt her best friend. "I know I was an idiot, I know I hurt Winry, and I know I really don't have any right to be here. Believe me, I know. But we need to see Winry to try to apologise. I won't be particularly surprised if she doesn't accept it, but we have to try. And then you can hit me again."

Paninya shrugged, as though the grudge was not dispelled, merely delayed. She spoke brusquely, but the deep worry in her voice betrayed her. "She's in the infirmary."

"The infirmary?" Al yelped. "Was she-?"

"She saved me," Kyle said dully, speaking for the first time. "An alchemist had managed to break through our lines, was wreaking havoc...Winry told us to leave him to her, but I...I got too close. She shoved me out of the way, and..."

To Ed's horror, the man looked like he was about to cry. That could only mean one thing...it was bad.

Kyle took a deep, shuddering breath. "She's strong, and the doc's never failed to fix her up before...but there was so much blood...I don't know if she's going to make it this time...I don't know if..."

Ed didn't wait to hear the rest of the man's words. He was sprinting down the road, his heart racing like a hare an inch away from the hound's jaws. He was dimly aware of Al running beside him, of the terror he felt rising in his own throat to choke him...but what he was truly aware of was the long distance to the infirmary, and the heavy words still ringing in his ears.

_'Don't know if she's going to make it...don't know if she's going to make it...don't know if she's going to make it...'_

The infirmary looming in front of him, the doors crashing open, the world coming into dizzying focus in a whirl of colours and bodies and the smell of disinfectant...

And blood. There was so much blood Ed thought he would vomit, the sharp, metallic taste filling the room like a cloud of despair. For a moment, what he was seeing didn't quite register with Ed – the picture came in trickles, in slow, tiny increments of realisation as though his mind couldn't accept this all at once and instead had to take it in slow, measured mouthfuls so he didn't choke on it.

A jagged piece of wood had impaled Winry, sticking out on either side of her body like a medieval lance had run her through. She was sitting bonelessly in Envy's lap, the once-homunculus supporting her against him, his arms hooked over her shoulders and holding her upper body immobile. Her head rested on his shoulder, her eyes staring at the ceiling, the pupils wide and muddy with pain.

Ed made a noise, he wasn't sure if it was a moan of dismay or a shout of horror, but Winry's head rolled on her neck to look at him.

"Hey..." she wheezed, blood bubbling from her nose and mouth. Each shaky rise of her chest was accompanied by a wet, whistling noise that told Ed her lung had been punctured at least once.

Her clothes were so saturated with blood they were dribbling sticky streams into the puddle below the chair she and Envy were sitting on, and the red liquid had soaked into the wood impaling her so that it seemed more black than brown. Of course, there had been just as much blood on the night Rush Valley was attacked, but that was different. Knowing that this was _Winry's_ blood, evidence of _Winry's_ injury...made it so much more horrific.

"Couldn't you...have arrived a...little earlier?" Winry quipped, her breathing laboured and pain-filled. "Like...before I started...dying?"

She coughed wetly, retched, and spat a little blood onto the floor.

"Dying?" Ed's vocal chords were so dry the word was like the rasp of sandpaper over gravel.

"Don't get your panties in a bunch! The doc will take care of her!" Envy snapped, though Ed had the feeling the statement was more to alleviate Envy's own worry than help Ed with his.

A ragged curtain swept aside and Marcoh and Scar entered. Marcoh's face was grim, and he was wearing gloves with a transmutation circle inked on the palms. He moved to stand in front of Winry as Scar grabbed the blonde woman's hips and rested his arms on her legs, keeping her lower body still.

"We have to pull it out," Marcoh said, barely glancing at Ed or Al. "Scar, Envy...make sure you hold her still, I don't want the wood splintering and rupturing her heart."

The men nodded.

"Ready?" Marcoh asked.

Winry made something akin to an affirmative blink – she seemed to have used all her energy on her previous morbid joke. She parted her lips to accept the cloth the doctor pushed into her mouth, to stop her biting through her tongue in pain.

Marcoh seized the wood and pulled, hard.

Winry screamed, muscles knotting and tendons standing out like pipes as her body fought to arch reflexively away from the pain. Scar and Envy's grip tightened; pale, blood-streaked flesh bruising beneath their ruthless fingers as they fought to hold her in place. Winry's head whipped from side to side, her feet kicked wildly, her flailing limbs striking out left and right. Scar and Envy gritted their teeth and silently bore the punishment of her agony.

Finally, horribly, the wood ripped free with a wet, tearing sound. Winry slumped like a puppet with the strings cut, her body shaking and quivering wildly as she went into shock. Ed felt like throwing up as he realised that the bloody wound was wide enough to glimpse Envy's blood-soaked clothes and the wood of the chair _through_ her body.

Severed arteries sprayed red fluid, shattered bones gleamed for a sickening heartbeat before Marcoh went to work. Pressing his palms flat against her body, making sure the transmutation circles contacted the ravaged flesh at the edges of the injury, he concentrated and the glow of alchemical light filled the room.

Ed watched, half in horrified repulsion, half in utter fascination, as Marcoh healed Winry with alchemy. Bones shifted, knitting together and aligning once more. Organs slowly ballooned to their original shape, ruptures and tears disappearing as though they had never been. Muscles, tendons and ligaments knotted across them, and skin slowly spread from the edges, pink and new and healthy.

Some part of Ed was a little disgusted – watching someone being repaired layer by layer was _not_ a pleasant experience. But most of him was simply relieved that Winry wasn't about to bleed to death in front of him.

Winry shivered as the wound finally closed, shuddered, and Marcoh only just managed to grab a bucket in time for her to expel a stream of bile and blood.

"I've never quite...gotten used to that..." Winry gasped out, collapsing back against Envy with a moan of pain. "That part where everything sort of knits back together..."

"Easy, Pidgeon," Envy murmured in a low, soothing voice, brushing her hair, damp with sweat and blood, out of her face. "Easy...all over now..."

That bewildered Ed as much as anything. He would never have thought Envy capable of genuine tenderness, but there was no other word to describe the way he was behaving. One of his arms was positioned around Winry's stomach, supporting her, and the other stroked the back of her neck in slow, soothing caresses.

"I'm exhausted," Winry mumbled, half-turning into Envy's chest.

"Get some sleep," Marcoh sighed, his voice a hoarse rasp. He seemed almost as exhausted as Winry, but Ed supposed a transmutation like that would have taken a lot of the man's energy. "Envy, put her in one of the beds so I can keep an eye on her."

Envy obediently carried Winry to one of the mattresses on the floor, settling her down with all the care a mother would show her child. Winry's eyes were already closed, and she barely stirred when Envy's arms finally slipped from around her, depositing her on the makeshift bed.

It was a contradicting image. Winry's face was so peaceful in sleep, but her torn and bloodied clothes spoke eloquently of war and chaos.

"Healing always wipes her out," Envy mused.

"Does she always drop off like that?" Ed couldn't help asking.

"Of course," Marcoh said, pulling the gloves off and beginning to clean the blood from the floor, his movements as slow as if his limbs were made of lead. "Healing with alchemy pulls from a person's natural strength, so it leaves the subject very drained. She'll sleep for a while, but the Commander will be back on her feet before we know it. In the meantime, I'll get someone to put mattresses on the floor of her room for you."

Marcoh pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. "And then maybe I'll be able to get some sleep, too," he muttered tiredly. "It's not exactly easy to pull someone together like that."

**oooooooo**

The first time they came, being squeezed into Winry's room felt comfortable, like puppies tumbling over each other; warm, intimate and companionable. Now, after what had happened, it felt like an intrusion.

Ed and Al didn't talk, just stared at the sparse furnishings – the glittering, well-maintained weapons, the nostalgic mechanical tools and the tattered books. He looked through them almost idly, desperate for something, anything, to pass the time.

Tucked behind the others, flat against the back of the bookshelf and out of sight, was a small paperback with yellowed edges and turned-up corners. It looked like it had been well-thumbed, and Ed's heart twisted as he flipped it over and read the cover.

_'Never Broken – Dealing With Rape.'_

It only seemed to emphasise the fact that they had no idea what Winry had been through and thus, no right to judge her actions. That scene in the infirmary had driven home a very ugly truth – what Winry did was incredibly dangerous. She could be killed at any moment, at any time. All it took was the slightest slip, the slightest mistake...and she could die.

And...that argument...could have been the last thing he ever said to her.

Ed heard footsteps along the corridor and shoved the book back into its previous hiding place – there was only one person those footsteps could belong to, and he had a feeling it wouldn't start their reconciliation off well if Winry thought he and Al had been snooping.

The door opened and the blonde woman staggered in, her hair damp from a shower, her eyes showing her weariness. When she showed no surprise at finding them in her room, Ed assumed Marcoh had told her.

She flopped onto her mattress with a sigh. "God, I'll never get used to how tired that makes me."

"You're healed now, right?" Al had to ask.

"I'm fine," Winry said, lifting her shirt in demonstration. Ed noticed that while the wound was undoubtedly healed, it had left a scar. But it was a very odd mark – a circle of thickened flesh as though only the edges of the injury had scarred, leaving the flesh in the middle unmarked.

Winry noticed his gaze. "Wounds healed by alchemy have to be pretty big to leave scars, and when they do, the scars are usually pretty weird. Like this one – I look like I've been attacked by a giant cookie-cutter."

"Kyle said you saved him," Al murmured, his voice sounding slightly awed.

Winry nodded. "In retrospect, it was kind of a stupid thing to do – jumping in front of the attack and all. But I wasn't really thinking at the time. I mean, I was, those thoughts just weren't concerned with _my_ safety."

"But you're the Commander!" Al protested. "You shouldn't do things like that!"

Winry shrugged. "Maybe so. But...he had a kid..."

She _seemed_ like she was perfectly at ease with them. But Ed wasn't fooled – her eyes were shadowed when she looked at them, and something rang false in her voice.

Ed took a deep breath, steeled himself for rejection, and spoke. "Winry...we're..._I'm_...sorry about...about what I said..."

Winry's eyes went as dark as burnt sapphire. Al, sensing the fast rising tension, attempted to make his own apologies.

"I'm sorry, too, Winry-"

"It's okay," Winry cut him off, her eyes still locked on Ed with all the intensity of a sniper's scope. "You didn't say anything."

Al fell silent, swallowing hard as Winry continued to stare at his brother.

Ed, feeling ever-more awkward and despairing, still struggled valiantly to scramble out of the grave he'd dug himself into. "I know I was an-" he hesitated, biting off the rather more adult word that first came to mind "-an idiot – I said things I had no right to – and for that I'm sorry..."

Winry made no response – her eyes hadn't even softened.

"...is there anything I can do to get you to forgive me?" Ed finished in a small, pained voice.

Winry looked at him, still not saying a word. She could admit she was still hurt over what he had said to her – she had thought that Ed and Al, at least, would be able to understand her position. But nursing a grudge never helped anyone, and while she knew apologies were not Edward Elric's strong point, he was genuinely contrite.

So Winry sighed, combed a hand through her hair, and decided to ask the one thing that could help her put the argument behind her.

"Close your eyes and grit your teeth," Winry instructed.

Ed gaped, completely lost. Why would she want him to...?

But when she raised an eyebrow impatiently, he did as she asked. For a moment, nothing happened, then something hit him across the face, so hard his head was snapped to the side. If his jaw hadn't already been tensed, he probably would have bitten his tongue.

Ed's eyes popped open in shock, one hand coming up to cradle his throbbing cheek. At first, he didn't know what had happened, but then he saw Winry, her fingers curling into her reddened palm, and knew. She had slapped him.

"I feel much better now," Winry practically chirped.

"T-that's it?" Ed stammered. He'd been half-expecting her to kick him out of Rush Valley.

"That's it," Winry nodded. "You hurt me, now I've hurt you – let's call it even."

Somehow, her forgiveness made Ed feel worse – like a child who'd shouted at an adult, and now the adult was being nice and understanding and _mature_ about it. It was a bit of a blow to his ego, to feel so immature compared to Winry. But then, it was no less then what he deserved – he'd exploded at her, acting like a hurt ten year-old, so if he was feeling a little immature now...it was justly deserved.

"So...no hard feelings?" Al reiterated, as if he didn't quite believe it.

"No hard feelings," Winry yawned. "Now I'm going straight back to sleep, okay?"

"Okay," Ed said, still feeling slightly numb.

Winry smiled softly at him, her blue eyes shining with warmth and caring once again – that gentle light in her eyes something Ed had never truly known he'd needed until it wasn't there. The hard lines of her face had smoothed out into quiet serenity, her smile not born of amusement but something closer to fondness, and the knowledge that he could put such an expression on her face was rich warm glow in Ed's chest.

And that was when it hit him.

He loved her.

He was in love with Winry Rockbell. The truly funny thing was that this realisation wasn't a triumphant burst of song of a bolt of lightning or anything of the sort. Just a sudden click, as though a light had been flicked on in his brain and he was suddenly truly aware of something he'd known all along.

_'I'm in love with Winry.'_

_'Well...duh.'_

**oooooooo**

_AN: Thanks, as per usual, to LaughingAstarael, for beta-ing this chapter and in general making it a smoother read._


	13. The Last Stand

**Chapter 13**

**The Last Stand**

The attacks on Rush Valley petered out as the weeks went on. The remaining H-Faction simply didn't have the resources to send their troops through miles of enemy territory in an effort to strike at the heart of the Resistance. Not to mention the fact that their numbers were now dwindling at a rate that predicted rapid extinction.

There was a map in the briefing room, a map of Amestris with which Winry kept track of the Resistance's advance. Resistance territory was marked in red, Dissident territory in blue, and the areas occupied by the H-Faction were coloured inky black. Over the last few weeks, with the steady feed of information from the Dissidents, those black patches had been shrinking at a very gratifying rate.

Now, there was only a few, isolated pockets of black left. The H-Faction were no longer fighting in a desperate attempt to turn the tide of the war – they were fighting to survive.

**oooooooo**

Winry breezed into the room the three of them shared with two letters clutched in her hand.

"Belladonna's back!" Winry chirped, sounding positively delighted.

Ed wracked his brain to try to place the name. "The last Resistance spy still working under cover?"

Winry nodded. "While that means we won't get any information on the H-Factions plans anymore, it also means I won't be losing any sleep worrying over my spies."

She flicked one letter onto her bookshelf – presumably the letter informing her of Belladonna's return to open Resistance activity. But the other letter she opened and read with avid fascination, eyes skimming the page as though she wanted to devour every word.

"Who's that from?" Al asked, trying to see the return address scrawled on the envelope.

"It's from Breda," Winry explained. "Hoping I'm well, saying he'll rip you guys a new one if you're giving me any trouble, that kind of thing."

"Aren't there phone lines open now?" Ed pointed out. "Why doesn't he just call you up?"

She laughed. "Ed, the lines are few and far between, and they're for official conversations. Information exchange, news of H-Faction's movements and the like. Breda's well-wishing doesn't count."

"Oh, right."

Winry read in silence for several minutes, only dimly aware of Ed and Al talking to each other and moving around the room. Breda said he hoped she'd recovered from the lance through her side (and part of her wondered how he'd found out about that), he warned her to make sure Ed and Al behaved, and informed her that everything was going well in Central, though he thought Hawkeye and Mustang were courting each other. Winry wasn't fooled by the supposedly harsh words about conversations behind locked doors and lingering touches – she could practically feel the approval leaking out of the page. Besides, hadn't Breda once told her about an office pool on when Hawkeye and Mustang hooked up? He'd also mentioned another one about marriage, and a third about children...

Thinking of babies, her mind wandered to little Winry Seren. It was an odd feeling, knowing that her friends had regarded her highly enough to name their child after her. And it was odd to think of another girl named Winry running around, even if the baby was over two decades younger.

But still, the little redhead was doing well, and her parents couldn't be prouder. Hell, half the Resistance cooed over her at every given opportunity. While there were plenty of children they'd freed from the prison camps, plenty of children born from those pregnant couples who had joined the makeshift army...Winry Seren was the first child whose parents had met in the Resistance, whose parents had fallen in love in the Resistance and who had been born into the Resistance.

She was, in her own way, a symbol of hope.

Winry reflected that it was almost ironic. As the Resistance Commander, she'd been the symbol of the Resistance's hope, the hope that they would survive the war. And now Winry Seren was becoming another symbol of hope, the hope that this war couldn't stop them from living their lives.

As she drifted off to sleep, Winry couldn't help wondering if it was something in the name. Were all Winry's fated to become symbols in some form or another?

**oooooooo**

Ed leaned against the wall of the briefing room, watching as Winry cradled one of Rush Valley's few phones against her ear, barking questions like a savage dog. You could always tell when she was talking to one of the Dissident officials other than Roy Mustang – with the Major General, she was cheerful, pleasant and asked after the welfare of Breda, Riza and the others. When it was someone else, she became grating and harsh, donning the mask of what they expected a Commander to be.

The facade lasted until she put the receiver down. Then she sang out a high note of triumph, sprang across the room to the map and carefully inked over several black patches with blue. Then she paused. She stepped back, regarding the map with something like awe in her eyes. Only when he wrenched his gaze from her and finally looked at the map did Ed realise what she found so astonishing.

The red of the Resistance and the blue of the Dissidents touched all across Amestris, save a small, black pocket in a place called Backridge Plains. With a start, Ed realised that was the last area in the control of the H-Faction, the last place that wasn't coloured in red or blue.

The H-Faction's last stronghold. If Backridge Plains fell...the war would be officially over.

For a moment, Winry just stared at the map, wetting her lips slowly, as a child might at the prospect of an ice cream – except the prospect of this war being over, truly over, was far more enticing than a mountain of sugared confectionery.

"Backridge Plains..." Winry said at last, her voice heavy with a mixture of eager anticipation and dread. Eager for the war to be over, and at the same time, dreading the battle that would come.

"The plains are closer to Rush Valley than Central," Winry mused. "So it's probably better for the Resistance to deal with this."

Another pause, and Winry picked up the phone again. "I guess I'll tell the Dissidents to let us handle them."

Ed wondered if he was just imagining the way her hand shook slightly as she dialed.

**oooooooo**

The very air seemed heavy as the Resistance prepared to march into battle. While the Resistance itself was spread across a large portion of Amestris, every outpost checking in with Winry and keeping in close contact with their Commander, the main army resided in Rush Valley. And it was here that people were preparing for what would be, hopefully, the final battle against the H-Faction.

And the last stand of the Resistance. For if the H-Faction fell at last, Ed had no doubt Winry would make good on her word and disband the Rush Valley Resistance.

But in the meantime, her army was marshalling. Most of the Resistance would be going with her – they were taking no chances – but some were staying behind.

Christa and Kyle were remaining in Rush Valley, in safety, to take care of little Winry. Ed was rather surprised Marcoh also remained behind, until Winry informed him the doctor had never really adjusted to the Ishbal War – he was prone to flashbacks on the battlefield, and so it was for his own sake as much as everyone else's that he remained behind. They were taking a less-experienced but more battle-worthy medic instead.

Ed and Al wanted to go with Winry but they weren't stupid. They knew, painful as that knowledge may be, that they would just be burdens. They could hold their own in a fight, yes, but they weren't used to the Resistance's hit and run methods, and Winry couldn't afford distractions like worrying about their safety.

But Envy seemed to find the fact that they were staying behind and letting Winry go to war immensely funny.

"Finally learning your place, Fullmetal?" he mocked as people climbed into trucks behind him, preparing to move out. "Don't worry, I'll take good care of the boss. Make sure nothing happens to her, keep her safe, you know...?"

Ed ground his teeth. Envy knew it was eating him up inside to watch Winry walk into danger, and the man was deliberately rubbing his nose in it. He was about to snarl back something sharp and cutting, but Winry came up behind Envy before he could.

"Envy, your mouth is moving, you might want to see to that," she snapped.

"It can move in other ways," he flirted. "Much nicer ways. Wanna find out?"

"What did I say about heartfelt goodbyes, Envy?" Winry asked, a single eyebrow raised.

"Butt out?"

"Smart boy."

He wandered off with a backwards glance of mock-longing directed at Winry. Ed sighed, opened his mouth...

And was cut off for the second time, this time by Scar. "He feels for you, you know?"

Ed and Al jumped, whipping around to see the Ishbalan hovering over their shoulders.

"Again with the sneaking," Winry sighed. "Can you ever just walk up, tap people on the shoulder and say 'hi, I'm here, no need to leap out of your skin'?"

Scar stared at her with faint amusement in his eyes.

"Never mind," Winry muttered. "Stupid question. What were you saying?"

"Envy," Scar indicated the green-haired man with a small nod. "He feels for you. He cares for you."

"I know," Winry said calmly. "But he isn't in love with me. So I have to keep brushing him off. Because if I ever returned it, if I ever flirted back...it would be too easy for him to think that what he feels for me is love. These sort of emotions are new to him – caring and love are two different things, and I don't want him to confuse them."

Ed blinked, startled at how insightful that statement was. Winry never flirted with Envy, not for her sake, but for Envy's?

Winry shook her head, then turned to Ed and Al. "Guess I'll be seeing you, then."

"When will you be back, Winry?" Al asked, his voice ripe with worry.

Winry shrugged. "Who knows?"

Then she reached forward and hugged them both fiercely. Ed held her tightly, unable to keep a small, deeply pessimistic part of him from thinking that this could be the last time he held her. She had survived this long, yes, but all it took was a bullet in just the right place...

He licked his lips, a half-formed idea of whispering in her ear that he loved her, but before the thought had truly taken form Winry had released him and stepped back.

"See you later," she smiled.

Then her voice hardened, roughened to a shout as she turned away. "_Let's move out!_"

Trucks started, the simultaneous gunning of engines sounding like a pride of lions staking a claim. The vehicles started slowly down the road, a black snake winding through the valley and towards the horizon, a solemn train carrying Winry away into the distance.

Ed just stared at them, and kept staring until long after the trucks had disappeared from view.

**oooooooo**

Ed wondered if this was what Winry felt when he and Al were roaming across Amestris in search of the Philosopher's Stone – this waiting, this sick, crawling worry, wondering if she was going to come home in pieces or if she was going to come home at all.

He didn't really know what to do with himself. Ed wandered around Rush Valley, half-crazy with anxiety, trying to find pointless busy work to keep his mind off Winry and what might be happening to her. In the end, he wound up spending a lot of time with Marcoh, who always seemed to welcome an extra set of hands to help him in the infirmary.

It was during one of those sessions that Ed learned how Marcoh had joined the Resistance in the first place.

He had been with Scar and the Xingian girl called Mei Chan, travelling north to investigate the notes left by Scar's brother. They were surprised by the H-Faction, and lost each other in the chaos. The doctor learned later that Scar managed to escape, but neither of them ever found out what happened to Mei Chan. Marcoh was captured and transported to one of the H-Faction's many prison camps.

Marcoh spent nearly three years in the camp before he was freed by the Resistance. At the time, Winry had been reluctant to use her alchemy – she hadn't truly understood it, and so had been worried she might make a mistake that could cost people their lives – so Marcoh tutored her, explaining it in great depth and detail until Winry felt comfortable using it.

"She knew we'd met," Ed mused. "Did you tell her?"

Marcoh nodded. "I told Winry a lot of things about my life. You just feel like you can talk to her, like she understands and – maybe not forgives – but _accepts_. She just puts people at ease around her...makes you feel like you can trust her with anything..."

The man's voice had been trailing off, but then he shook himself out of whatever reverie he'd sunk into. "Still, it makes her a good Commander, doesn't it?"

Ed made an indistinct noise of agreement in the back of his throat. It was true – Winry was a good leader, he shouldn't worry...

But he wished she'd come back soon.

**oooooooo**

The rumble of engines roused Ed from a catnap he'd sunk into after lunch. For a moment, he just lay where he was, blinking against the light, wondering why he felt like leaping up and running towards the sound. Then memory came back in a swift burst, like an explosion of rain from heavy clouds, and Ed leapt to his feet and followed the sounds.

_'Winry's back!'_

But his relief was short-lived. The people disembarking from the trucks were battered and bruised, looking as weary as if they'd been forced to run to Backridge Plains and back. Many were being brought out on stretchers, and the motionless, white-shrouded forms in the back of some vans did nothing to ease his worry. Ed's eyes scanned the crowd like a prowling hawk's, looking for Winry, for that small, distinctive blonde head...

He was so intent on the crowd, he missed Winry coming up behind him. "Hey, Ed."

Ed whipped around, wondering if everyone in the Resistance was conspiring to give him a heart attack with the way they sneaked around. "Winry?"

Her smile was tired but genuine. Her clothes were covered in dirt and dust, and she was holding a patch of cloth against her arm. He peered a little closer, and realised there were streaks of dried blood on the material.

"Are you hurt?" he demanded, instantly tense. "Do you need to see Marcoh?"

"Not you, too!" Winry moaned. "I'm fine, a bullet just nicked me, that's all! It wasn't even worth bothering our battle medic about-"

"Still a good idea to see the doc, boss," Envy chimed in, he and Scar extricating themselves from the crowd. "Just make sure it didn't get anything important."

Envy seemed honestly worried, as did Scar, but Ed supposed that was to be expected. After all, these were men who were despairingly accustomed to people around them dying. Scar had lost his brother, his family and most of his people. Everyone who had ever meant 'ally' to Envy was now dead (though Greed/Ling was still unaccounted for). Most of the people or creatures they had been attached to had died, and Ed had a feeling a history like that made you very protective of anything you grew to care for.

"It would be advisable for you to at least treat the gash with antiseptic, Vharla," Scar added.

Attacked on all sides, Winry could only throw her hands up in resigned exasperation. "Fine! I'll go see Miracle-worker about this _insignificant_ little cut, let him squirt me with chemicals and put string through my skin! Happy, now?"

**oooooooo**

"Stop staring at me like I'm about to keel over!" Winry barked, her feet tapping agitatedly against the floor of the infirmary as they waited for Marcoh to finish treating more pressing injuries.

Envy and Scar didn't so much as blink.

"I'm not going to die the second you take your eyes off me," she grumped.

Something flickered in their eyes, a mixture of guilt, fear and apprehension that was gone almost as soon as Ed noticed it. But Winry had seen it too, and he saw her brow furrow as she tried to puzzle it out. Then a distant sort of shock settled over her features, and Ed could see the moment when she realised what he had inferred just minutes before.

"You guys think you're going to see me die?" Winry growled, and Ed had the feeling it wasn't as much of a question as her tone made it sound.

Something flashed in Scar's eyes, and Envy avoided her gaze.

"Well, don't worry about it – you're not going to see me die!" she snapped. "And I'll tell you why; I'll be seventy years old and calling you two every day to fix my drains and change my lightbulbs and run to the shops and organise my photo albums and rant about how young people have no respect – you guys are going to die first, just to get away from me! Got it?"

Ed couldn't help chuckling at the stunned looks on both Envy and Scar's faces. It just struck him as typically Winry – instead of mouthing some empty promise about dying together, she was insisting that they would die first. Assuring these survivors, who had outlasted almost everyone who ever meant anything to them, that they would indeed die someday.

Winry had a weird idea of comfort, but more often than not, her brand of comfort was just what you needed.

**oooooooo**

Marcoh stitched up the small gash in Winry's arm carefully, the wound small enough to make performing alchemy unnecessary, but still large enough to require stitches.

As soon as the injury was dealt with, Scar and Envy were banished to what served as the Resistance's cafeteria, on strict orders to eat a full-course meal. Winry didn't accompany them, just stared out the window of the infirmary, absently fiddling with the hem of her shirt.

"Where's Al?" she asked suddenly.

"He went with Kyle into the mountains to repair one of the bridges," Ed answered. "He'll be disappointed he missed your arrival."

Winry nodded, still staring out the window. Ed made no move to break the silence, unsure of what she was thinking. The war was officially over...but many, many lives had been lost. Lost or changed forever, so altered by what they had experienced that they might never be able to return to what they had once called home...

When Winry finally spoke, her voice was detached, as though not even she could believe this was really happening. "I guess...I better pick up the phone and inform the Dissidents that the war's finally been won."

"And then?" Ed couldn't help asking.

Winry's eyes were unreadable, but her voice held a hint of sorrow. "And then...we disband the Resistance."


	14. At The End Of All Things

**Chapter 14**

**At The End Of All Things**

The war now over, the Resistance disbanded slowly over a period of several months. Winry worked hard to make sure no one would be left in the cold – sending people to their old hometowns, helping them search for any remaining family lost in the war, ensuring they could provide for themselves.

Watching as her followers slowly bled away, some part of Winry was relieved – her decisions no longer determined the fate of thousands of lives – but another part was bereft; the emptiness a shepherd felt when he let his flock wander into the highlands for the summer, the emptiness only another leader would understand.

In Central, the Dissidents were trying to rebuild the economy, but on the shoulders of a democratic government this time, with Roy Mustang as the driving force behind the movement. Breda's most recent letter had confessed such a government had been the Major General's ultimate goal for some time, but Roy always expected to be executed for war crimes after it was enstated.

Winry couldn't help thinking that after what Roy had done for the democracy and for Amestris, no one would dare execute him.

"Vharla?"

Winry turned, folding Breda's latest letter in her hand. "Something wrong, Scar?"

Scar looked at her, a small bundle resting in his arms, seeming strangely ill at ease. Winry could count on one hand the number of times she'd actually seen Scar like this, and it usually precluded some catastrophic disaster.

"What's wrong?" she repeated.

Scar shifted the bundle in his grasp, and with a start, Winry realised that the Ishbalan was carrying what few belongings he actually owned. In an abrupt flash, she understood.

"You're leaving," she said simply.

Scar nodded. "I need to."

"Why?"

Scar didn't answer for a long time, and Winry knew he was thinking it over, trying to give her as honest an answer as possible. "I was following a false ideal for a long time, Vharla. I then pledged myself to your ideal when mine failed, and now I need to find my own."

"Although," he added. "If you need me to stay..."

"I don't need you to stay," Winry assured him. "I just wanted to make sure you were leaving for the right reasons."

Scar seemed to be thinking deeply, treading carefully over his words as he struggled to express himself.

"It's intriguing," he said at last. "I thought I had reached an understanding of this world and my place in it, but then you stole into my life...and everything changed."

Winry grinned. "We're a long way from where we started, aren't we? A scared, vengeful girl with a gun she barely knew how to use, facing down a self-proclaimed killer of alchemists."

Scar's eyes were sombre. "To know you as that girl, and see the woman you are now...I would not recognise you."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"Perhaps both." Scar's smile was bittersweet.

Winry smiled, and then in the most intimate contact she'd ever initiated with Scar or ever seen the Ishbalan engaged in, she embraced him. Any contact with Scar always seemed to reinforce how big he was – her arms couldn't encircle his chest, while just one of his hands could cradle the back of her head with ease.

"I do not know what my future holds, let alone yours...but I wish you happiness," Scar murmured. "Farewell...Winry."

It was the first time he ever used her real name. Taking her cue, Winry released him, allowing him to draw back. She watched as he turned and walked away, heading into the distance, into whatever awaited him.

"You better write, you hear me?" she called after him. "I don't care if you're in the middle of nowhere, I expect a letter at least once a month. Even if you're away for twenty years – there better be two hundred and forty letters stuffed in my desk, you hear?"

Scar half-turned, and though he was too far away for her to see his features clearly, Winry could imagine the little flicker at the side of his mouth that said he was amused. He raised his hand – a gesture of both farewell and acknowledgment. Winry imitated him.

"Bye, Scar," she whispered, even though she knew he wouldn't hear her.

Scar remained motionless for a moment, then turned away once more and walked into the horizon.

He didn't look back.

**oooooooo**

"So..he left?" Paninya asked, incredulous. "Just like that?"

"Just like that," Winry nodded. "Probably didn't want to deal with everyone being sentimental. I think the only reason he said goodbye to me was because he felt like he owed it to me to at least tell me that he was going."

Ed couldn't help thinking there was a probably a deeper, far more complex reason that Winry had been the only person Scar had said goodbye to. But he didn't feel like thinking it over and untangling the inscrutable man's motivations, so he let it be.

"I don't think I could do that," Paninya mused. "Just go off wandering. Rush Valley's my home – I don't want to leave, not ever."

Winry smiled fondly at her friend. "I think I'd like to leave one day. Not for a while, though – I mean, where would I go, anyway?"

Ed and Al didn't say anything. They wanted to stay here, to stay with Winry, but they knew they were only putting off the inevitable return to Central. Winry was still a leader here, of sorts, organising the rebuilding of buildings, bridges and other structures damaged by the war. She had told them they never really had a chance to reconstruct before, not with the constant attacks from the H-Faction.

Unfortunately, Ed knew it was only a matter of time before he and Al were called to help with the reconstruction in Central. But he'd wait for the official summons, and until that day came...

He was just going to enjoy being with Winry.

"What about you, Envy?" Winry asked.

The green-haired man had been uncharacteristically silent ever since Winry had informed them of Scar's departure, appearing to be deep in thought. At Winry's question, he blinked sharply as though to drag himself out of a trance.

"I think...I think I'd like to wander a little, too," Envy confessed. "I mean, old Scarface went out to find himself, so who says the same thing wouldn't work for me?"

He looked at Winry, his eyes anxious. "What do you think, boss?"

"Only you can decide," Winry said sagely.

Personally, she though it was a good idea. It would help Envy break from the pack mentality imposed on him by Father – to wander around, unattached, working only to please himself...it could only do him good. But she wanted the decision to be his and his alone. If she made it for him, she was just perpetuating that cycle of dependence.

**oooooooo**

Ed woke with a start. He lay still for a moment, trying to determine what had jerked him from sleep. Then he heard it – a soft sound from the hall, as though someone were moving around.

Ed slipped cautiously from his bed, listening intently.

The light in the corridor snapped on and someone yelled. Ed fought the instinctive urge to barrel recklessly into a confrontation, and instead pressed his eye against a small crack between the door and the jamb, trying to see what was happening...

For a moment, surprise made his brain blank. Winry had twisted Envy's arm up behind his back and was currently pressing the man's face into the wall. A small suitcase at their feet told Ed that Winry had caught Envy sneaking out.

"You weren't trying to leave without saying goodbye, were you?" Winry asked, her tone deceptively casual.

"Uh...no?" Envy tried.

"Smart boy."

Winry released him and Envy stepped away from the wall, rubbing his arm. "Damn, you can really be violent sometimes, boss."

"Only to friends who try to sneak out in the dead of night."

"I don't like goodbyes," Envy muttered petulantly.

Winry sighed. "Goodbyes aren't for the sake of those who are leaving...they're for the sake of the people left behind."

Ed winced, remembering how many times in the past he had been guilty of not saying goodbye.

He made an effort not to get lost in his memories in favour of listening in on the conversation. He knew he shouldn't eavesdrop...but he couldn't help his curiosity. He'd never quite understood how or why Envy ended up on their side, and he supposed this lack of understanding made him greedy for any knowledge about the man he could possibly glean.

"...you'll find plenty of pretty girls that your flirtations will actually work on," Winry was telling him. "And I expect you to write frequently, at least once a month."

"I'll write," Envy nodded, than added with a lewd grin, "I expect you and Fullmetal to have a whole pack of kids when I next come to visit."

Winry cuffed him lightly around the ears. Though the gesture was light-hearted, the mood somehow sobered, as each was reminded that this easy banter was no longer going to be a part of their daily lives. Winry leaned forward swiftly, catching Envy in a brief but powerful hug.

"I hope you find whatever you're looking for," Winry said a low voice.

"Yeah," Envy murmured. "I hope...I hope you're happy, Pidgeon."

Hearing the hesitation in his voice – as though wrestling with unfamiliar words – Ed couldn't help but think that was the first time Envy had honestly wished for another being's happiness.

The moment was broken when Envy purred, "Mind you, I could make you _very_ happy."

There was no questioning his meaning. Winry dealt another light blow to his head.

"What was that for?" he wailed, trying to sound much-abused.

"If I do it hard enough, maybe I'll smack those perverted thoughts out of your head!"

"I thought you said some girl would like my flirting!"

"I'm not 'some girl', now shoo!"

They both laughed softly.

"Goodbye, Pidgeon," Envy said quietly.

"Goodbye, Envy."

Envy bent down and shouldered the small suitcase of his belongings, then walked out the door and into the night.

Winry sighed, ran a hand through her hair, then called, "You can stop eavesdropping, Ed."

Ed jumped – Winry and her carefully-honed senses were bad for his health. He considered jumping back into his bed and pleading ignorance, but common sense won out. He opened the door and stepped into the hallway.

He could sense Winry's disquiet, a soft air of worry hanging around her shoulders.

"You think Envy's going to be okay?" he asked, more for Winry's sake than any concern over the man.

"He'll be okay," Winry said, staring out the open door at the night sky. "He's starting to break out of the wolf pack mentality, but he really needs to be on his own to do that. He left for the same reason Scar did – they both need to figure out who they are."

She sighed softly, shaking her head. "Everyone is finding out who they are...and I'll have to learn to do the same."

Ed couldn't help but be concerned, remembering their conversation, so long ago, about leading normal lives.

"I'll leave Rush Valley eventually," Winry mused. "I think I'll have to go somewhere else to have any chance of moving on. There are too many memories here, you know?"

Ed couldn't find an answer, but it seemed Winry didn't need one. With another sigh, she breezed back into the darkened room behind them, bidding him a quick goodnight before pulling the blanket across her shoulders.

Lying in his bed that night, Ed couldn't help wondering if maybe, just maybe, he could help Winry lead a normal life.

Maybe they could help each other.

**oooooooo**

Ed had known this was coming. He had known it was only a matter of time before he and Al were called back to Central.

He just hadn't expected it to be so soon.

Barely a day after Envy had left, Breda had arrived with the official summons and orders to escort Ed and Al back to Central, where their alchemy was required in reconstruction projects.

"Isn't there..." Al bit his lip, apparently thinking things over before he tried again. "Isn't there any way we could just stay here? We've been helping the people in Rush Valley with reconstruction, doesn't that count?"

Breda shook his head. "Sorry, kid. The powers that be are adamant."

"That sucks," Paninya said bluntly.

Ed frowned. He didn't like being separated from Winry so soon after the war ended. In truth, he didn't like being separated from Winry _at all_. But he supposed they had little choice.

"By the way," Breda continued, "I've been told to ask Winry to accompany us."

Winry blinked. "Me?"

"You," Breda affirmed, grinning. "After the war, with the injuries and all...Central needs a skilled automail surgeon, and the Major General was insistent you get first look-in."

Winry paused, mulling it over. She didn't want to leave Paninya alone in Rush Valley, and she didn't want to abandon the reconstruction projects. But on the other hand, Kyle, Christa, Travis and little Winry would still be in Rush Valley, so the dark-haired girl would not be without company. And there were plenty of competent people in the city, so it wasn't like the reconstruction projects would collapse without her...

Not to mention a small part of her that she was studiously trying to ignore, that told her she just wanted to stay with Ed and Al. Especially Ed.

"Sounds like a good job," Winry smiled. "I'll take it."

Paninya's eyes crinkled at the corners, sorrow at her friend's departure in her dark gaze. But she understood Winry better than anyone – she knew that her friend had been far more affected by the war than she had, and knew she would have to leave Rush Valley to start putting it behind her.

Still, it didn't stop the parting hurting any less. Paninya could tell by the glittering in Winry's eyes as her friend looked at her that she wasn't the only one who was finding this difficult.

"You're coming to Central with us?" Al gaped, sounding as excited as a child in a candy store, having completely missed the silent exchange between the two women.

Winry reluctantly broke eyes contact with Paninya to flash a grin at both brothers. "Guess so. So, Ed, want to be measured for a new arm and leg? You can be the first to try out Winry Rockbell's newly-revived automail!"


	15. Snare Of Thorns

**Chapter 15**

**Snare Of Thorns**

Ed flexed his new arm, almost laughing aloud at the far-lighter weight and the oil-smooth movement. There really was nothing in the world like Winry's automail.

"So..." Winry drawled, leaning casually against the table and trying not to look too pleased with herself. "Passable?"

"More than passable," Ed said honestly.

The alchemist found the metal arm and leg frankly astounding – they were the first Winry had created in over five years, and yet they exceeded his old ones in such a way that there was no true comparison. If nothing else, it showed that Winry was justified in her choice of vocation; she might be a talented leader, but as far as automail went, Winry wasn't just gifted...she _was_ the gift.

It was strange...when he and Al had first seen Winry again, he'd thought a new arm and leg were the first things he'd get from her – at her insistence, most likely – but with everything that had happened, all the stories and secrets the three of them had shared, his automail had been pushed to the back of his mind.

He and Al were currently in Winry's new apartment in Central, having been invited over for dinner and (in Ed's case) a new automail fitting. Boxes were scattered around the rooms, and though some part of Ed expected to see chairs and furniture piled high with the trappings of Winry's life, the amount of boxes was actually surprisingly small, considering Winry thought of this as a permanent move. But then, Ed supposed many of her possessions had been lost or destroyed during the war – her room in Rush Valley had boasted no superfluous items.

"I'm not fully moved in yet," Winry said, noticing the direction of Ed's gaze. "I'll set up the automail shop downstairs once I'm settled in."

Al thought it was a mark of how comfortable Winry was with them, that she didn't feel the need to have everything straight and immaculate before inviting them over. He reflected that there was something very intimate in being invited to a messy house – though the gesture seemed almost insignificant, it implied wealths of trust and confidence.

Dinner was eaten in the easy, comfortable kind of silence that accompanied family meals, only broken by quiet comments and short streams of conversation.

"You sure you guys don't want to stay the night?" Winry asked as she stacked the dishes next to the sink. "I've got a fully furnished guest room."

Ed shook his head. "Sorry – we have to be on the train really early tomorrow, with the repairs and everything."

Winry nodded, and didn't try to persuade them further. She knew going to Dublith must bring up painful memories, with Izumi and Seig now dead. They had resisted the H-Faction's occupation, and had subsequently been 'made examples of'. And Winry had a pretty good idea of what that entailed, the knowledge lying in her stomach like a heavy rock.

On the other hand, she supposed the trip to Dublith would give the brothers an opportunity for closure. A chance to visit her grave and pay their respects.

And with that thought, Winry realised that was something she wanted to do as well. But not with Izumi.

**oooooooo**

Winry had barely waved Ed and Al off at the station before she was boarding her own train. They had been a little surprised to see her awake so early, but when she was the Commander Winry had made a habit of rising before anyone else, so any problems could receive her immediate attention.

Leaning back against the seat cushions, Winry reflected she probably could have been drafted into the repair work because of her 'training' in alchemy, but she was glad she hadn't been. She'd caused a lot of destruction as an Angel of Death, and one of her assignments had been in Dublith. She didn't think she wanted to see the state she and the war had left the city in, even if she were repairing the destruction.

Winry sighed softly, absently rubbing the tattoo on her wrist – covered by long sleeves – and gazing out the window. She used to hate trains, feeling uncomfortable when sitting down for too long, but now...now she thought she could understand what Ed and Al saw in it. There was something soothing in the slow rocking motion of the locomotive, something relaxing in just staring out the window at the scenery flashing by, not having to think of...well, anything, except the slow progression onwards...

Winry was struck by the impulse to give into a light doze, and while she would never do it (she didn't want to miss her station) she delighted in the desire. Some part of her was still reluctant to relax her guard in public places or in the presence of people she didn't know – some deeply hidden instincts clung to her wartime-wariness even now, like a feral cat bristling at a proffered meal. Old habits were hard to break, and Winry supposed she couldn't unlearn in a few weeks those which had been formed and honed over five years.

But this sudden whim to doze on the train was different – she honestly wanted to do it. There was no snarling, questioning voice in the back of her head asking whether unseen threats were lurking in the shadows, waiting for a moment of weakness.

Maybe old habits couldn't be unlearned in a week, but they could unlearned eventually. It just took time.

**oooooooo**

Winry stepped lightly into Risembool's graveyard, moving around the marble stones with quiet respect. She weaved through the lines of markers, finally arriving before the large stone that marked her parents' resting place. But it was not their grave she knelt in front of. It was the one beside it.

_Pinako Rockbell_

_Beloved grandmother, mother, wife and friend_

_Rest In Peace_

In the spirit of tradition, Winry had brought a small offering for her grandmother's tomb. She didn't bring cut flowers, but instead a small seedling of a wild rose that she planted in the soil. Winry thought it was far more fitting than a bouquet – Pinako would probably prefer a living, growing plant rather than something that looked pretty for a day or so and then died.

She stared at the seedling, gently touching the small buds that promised future flowers, careful to avoid the thorns. She had never understood why people bred thornless roses – for Winry, those barbs were part of the appeal. The flowers were beautiful and elegant, exhalted as a symbol of love and desire...but the plant also had sharp thorns. Roses could cause pain, just like the emotions they represented.

Love was beautiful, but like the rose, it could make you bleed. Could cause you pain when you least expected it. You could be handling the flower as carefully as a neurosurgeon wielding a scalpel, when your finger was suddenly sliced open. Winry reflected that love's pain was like those jagged cuts; sharp and sudden, then stinging and weeping slowly for a long time.

Like when someone you loved died.

Winry didn't talk to her grandmother's grave – she didn't see the need. Instead, she just knelt and stared at the stone, as though reconciling in her mind the irrefutable fact that her grandmother – the woman who had taken her in and raised her when her parents died – was in a coffin six feet beneath the soil. Her eyes traced the letters carved into the marble, her mind replaying her memories of her grandmother as tears pricked at her eyes.

A few months ago, Winry would have sniffed them back, blinked them away, done anything and everything she could to suppress them. But now...now she remembered weeping in Ed and Al's arms, remembered the feeling of freedom that gave her...and now, Winry let herself cry.

**oooooooo**

Eventually, Winry had no more tears to shed. She rocked back on her heels, trying to breathe evenly through the hitch in her throat.

Winry's thoughts had turned from her grandmother to contemplate this stark reminder of mortality. She couldn't help thinking about what she would like to do now, now that the war was over and she was no longer in command of the Rush Valley Resistance. Winry realised that while she had contemplated this before, she had never truly taken the thought seriously. Some deeply buried, cynical part of her always believed she'd die before the war ended. The odds of someone in a high-ranking leadership position surviving a war weren't high – especially if they were out in the field as much as she was.

In short, Winry had always believed, deep down, that her life would end before the war did.

Winry acknowledged that maybe – far from expected – she had almost _hoped_ she would. Winry knew she had endured levels of trauma that would have driven many people insane, both physical and psychological suffering combining to make a load of emotional baggage that she would have to work through before she really did anything. Dying would have been easier than trying to cope with something like that.

It was easy to die in a war...it was much, much harder to live through it.

After admitting to herself she needed to work through some serious issues before doing anything else, Winry's thoughts naturally turned to what that 'anything else' might be. She wanted to start her own automail business, of course, and was already well on her way to doing just that. Winry also knew she wanted to see her friends happy, though that wasn't actually a goal for herself and was one she couldn't really do much about – in the end, their happiness or sorrow was up to them, and all she could do was try to stand by them.

She dwelt on such philosophical thoughts for a moment, before moving past them and back to her considerations on what she wanted now.

Winry knew she wanted to stay close to Ed and Al. They had been apart for a very long time, and the changes they had undergone – well, the changes she had undergone – had come close to driving them apart for good. They had been separated by Ed and Al's quest, then by the war, and while they had managed to bridge those chasms – the trials only strengthening their bond in the end – Winry could still admit to the private fear that if they were ever separated like this again...it would be permanent.

What was the saying again? About the third time being the charm?

But what she really wanted...what Winry really, desperately wanted was sequestered so deeply in her heart she could barely stand to whisper it in the silence of her mind.

She wanted was a relationship with Ed. A romantic relationship. A sexual relationship.

And it was that 'sexual' part that was making her uneasy. After everything she'd been through, Winry knew she was in no way ready for anything like that. Not after...

Winry shook her head firmly to dispel the memories trying to slither into mind like shadowy serpents. She wasn't going to think about that now.

She stared at the horizon for a time, wondering what she was going to do now. But then she broke off her thoughts with an almost audible snap. She knew what she wanted...she would just see how everything played from there.

With a final sigh, Winry rose from the grass, dusting her pants off and preparing to depart the graveyard. She didn't think she'd be back here again – she wasn't the type to keep visiting graves. Winry had found her closure, and now she couldn't help but feel the Pinako's presence was far stronger in her memories than in the body rotting beneath her feet.

Winry walked out of the graveyard without looking back.

**oooooooo**

Winry yawned, slowly rotating her neck and wincing when she felt tendons stretch and pop. She was exhausted – nothing compared to those days when the Rush Valley Resistance was first venturing into the surrounding territory and the resulting raids and attacks kept her from sleep for days on end – but she was still very tired.

She'd taken a trip to Central's graveyard recently, visiting the tombstones of Jean Havoc and Vato Falman – while she hadn't known them particularly well, she dimly remembered them from one of her many trips to Central...they had been good men. She found herself getting a little teary-eyed as she stood in front of the three Hughes' tombstones – while Maes' passing was several years gone, Gracia and Elicia were recent casualties, a result of an attack on one of the Dissident's refugee camps.

Elicia had been so young...

Winry tried to jerk herself out of her rapidly down-turning mood as she bent back to the leg on the table – this and the business it represented being the main source of her current exhaustion.

Since setting up shop in Central over a week ago, Winry had already been inundated by the sheer numbers of customers. They were mainly from the military, but as they were the ones on the battlefields and the Dissident government were her main employers, Winry supposed that was to be expected. She wanted to expand her clientèle, but was forcing herself to be patient, knowing word of mouth was the best advertising for automail.

The doorbell rang, announcing someone's presence at her doorstep with a sharp chime. Smothering another yawn, Winry rose and cracked it open.

Ed and Al were standing on her doorstep.

**oooooooo**

Sitting at Winry's table with a mug of hot chocolate (Winry eschewed tea and coffee, saying they either made you too relaxed or too tense) after a week in Dublith, Ed found himself struggling just to stay awake.

He was exhausted. Partly from the work he and Al had been doing, but he could admit a lot of it was emotional exhaustion, too. It had felt so strange; walking around Dublith without Izumi, the satisfaction of repairing the city clashing with the turmoil of walking in the streets their teacher lived and died in.

"How did it go?" Winry asked quietly, the presence of her gaze unusually heavy. Not exactly pinning them, but resting on them with enough force that they couldn't escape.

"It was okay," Ed muttered, covering his white lie with a sip of the hot beverage in front of him.

Winry's eyes hardened into a glare. "Don't lie to me."

"It felt weird," Al admitted. "We kept expecting to see Teacher, or thinking we should call on her and then...and then we'd remember..."

Winry's face softened and she nodded, "I felt the same way when I went to Risembool – some part of me was convinced that Granny was about to lean out the door and call me in for dinner."

"You went to Risembool?" Ed repeated. "Why didn't you wait until we got back?"

"We would have liked to see Granny's grave, Winry," Al said softly.

"I'm sorry," Winry apologised quietly. She did feel a little guilty, but on the other hand..."I just felt...like it was something I needed to do by myself. I said goodbye to Granny, but it was more than that – I thought about what I want, where I want to go, what I want to do, that kind of thing."

She looked out the window, her eyes slightly unfocused. "I really needed that – I feel so much more focused now. As though now that I know what I want, I'm that much closer to getting it, you know?"

Ed wondered at that, before he realised he felt the same. He hadn't yet adjusted to waking up without _something_ hanging over his head, whether it be Al's restoration or the war. He had been feeling slightly lost, adrift in a sea of possibilities, unable to decide what he truly wanted to do now that his life was his own. But then he had realised that he didn't have to decide, not yet – he had plenty of time. For the first time in a very, very long while, Ed had time. He didn't have to immediately commit himself to a course of action before his chance was lost – he had time to consider, to weigh his options, to examine if it was truly what he wanted, not just a spur of the moment decision.

It was a freeing thought. While he felt useless on occasion, almost bored, it was a feeling he could get used to, a feeling he could grow to like.

If Ed was entirely honest with himself, he knew that the one thing he was absolutely certain he wanted – wanted badly – was a relationship with Winry. But after what she'd been through, he didn't see how she could be ready for anything like that.

Assuming, of course, that she felt the same way about him, which was really assuming quite a lot. He knew Winry loved him, but there were many different kinds of love. Maybe she loved him as a friend, or a brother, or a...?

Ed blinked, hard, cutting his train of thought off at the pass. He wasn't going to delve into those doubts now, not here – and not for a while yet. Besides, if he looked at it rationally and logically (a surprisingly difficult thing for him to do when Winry was involved), there was substantial evidence for Winry having romantic feelings for him.

At least, he thought there was. He _hoped_ there was.

Ed became aware that while he was lost in the fog of his own thoughts, Winry and Al had been carrying on an entire conversation. He tuned in just in time to catch Winry's final comment.

"But before I do anything, I've got some pretty heavy stuff to deal with," the blonde girl acknowledged. "It'll probably take a while for me to get my head screwed on straight again."

The simple honesty and courage in her voice left Ed with a glowing feeling of pride in his chest. For a moment, he wondered at the strength he saw in Winry in almost everything she did – the strength it took to try to face her demons head-on.

**oooooooo**

_AN: Thank you, LaughingAstarael, for beta-ing this chapter._


	16. Cleansing

**Chapter 16**

**Cleansing**

It was several days later that Ed learned Winry wasn't quite as ready to move on as he had thought. He was passing Winry's house and knocked on the door – intending to drop by for only a few minutes – but when Winry opened it, she seemed dazed and badly shaken – as though she'd just walked out of a train wreck.

"What's wrong?" Ed asked urgently, his original destination already forgotten.

Winry blinked, staring at him with the blank, glass-eyed look of a wounded animal. Then his words seemed to penetrate the fog she was floating in, and she stepped back from the entrance, allowing him to move inside.

Ed followed as Winry led him into the lounge room and sat down beside her as she slumped onto the couch. She hadn't said a word, and the shock-dazed look on her face was making Ed's stomach twist. He was about to ask again what had happened, when Winry finally spoke.

"I was at the doctor's," she said, her voice a rusty scrape. "You know...the 'condition of entry' thing..."

Ed nodded. When entering into the military's employ, you were required to undergo a medical examination so any problems could be identified and dealt with as soon as possible.

"I was lying on the exam table," Winry continued bleakly, "And I...it was so cold...and the metal, it felt...and I saw the doctor looming over me, and suddenly...suddenly I was back in Angel's Nest and I just...I..."

She trailed off, her eyes wide and staring.

"Winry...?" Ed whispered.

"I attacked the doctor!" Winry gasped out, her voice brimming with tears.

Ed sucked in a gasp. The doctor's examination had caused Winry to have a flashback of her imprisonment in Angel's Nest, and she had lashed out at what she perceived to be a threat.

"But no one can blame you for that!" Ed snapped heatedly. If anyone even thought of holding Winry responsible...

"The doctor won't press charges," Winry said, with a suspicious sniffle at the end of her sentence. "He's a military doctor – he understands how compelling flashbacks are, how they can make people act, but that doesn't...that doesn't excuse what I did."

Ed's brow furrowed. "What-?"

"I lost control," Winry whispered, in a voice that made Ed's chest ache. "I lost control...and I hurt someone..."

"It's okay," Ed soothed. He knew he wasn't good at being comforting – it was more Al's department – but for Winry's sake, he was going to try. "Lots of people have flashbacks – it's okay-"

"_No it's not!_" Winry yelled.

Beginning to reach for her, Ed jerked back in surprise.

"It's not okay," Winry said in a more moderate tone. "Yes, I'm sure a lot of people have to deal with things like this, but that's different. Because while they might cause some bruises or property damage, with my training I could _kill_ someone."

She looked at Ed with eyes whose warmth was almost lost in a cold sea of pain as she confided in a voice barely louder than a breath, "I don't want to hurt anyone again."

Ed's heart twisted as he heard the aching vulnerability behind Winry's words. He knew that being forced to kill for the H-Faction had affected Winry deeply – he could never truly comprehend the depths of guilt and pain that had left her with. Any comfort he had to offer was paltry compared to it.

But it was still comfort. And all comfort, however small, would help her.

"Maybe..." Ed swallowed around his suddenly dry throat and tried again. "Maybe you just need to figure out what triggers memories like that...and then just try to stay away from those triggers. It'll fade with time."

As he spoke, Ed was thinking of the horrific night he and Al attempted human transmutation. After that, he had been prone to occasional flashbacks, set off by the smell of blood, the sound of screams, sometimes by crowded places as the bodies pressed close to him echoed the feel of thousands of shadow hands...

Gradually, his sensitivity to such things had dulled, slowly melting away as his memories dimmed under the weight of time. He had faith that Winry's would eventually do the same. Eventually.

"They _will_ fade, Winry," he repeated. "They will."

Winry nodded, but some part of her was screaming that these memories were too horrific, too vivid, to fade. Was it wrong to cling to hope when you suspected the hope was false?

**oooooooo**

Al was grinning as he dashed through the streets, dodging around slower pedestrians, his haste attracting several bewildered gazes. After two weeks in the far reaches of Amestris, travelling from small town to small town, repairing the ravages of war, Al was so eager to see Winry he was practically skipping down the road.

He had left Ed back at the office, his brother still delayed with reports – Ed could never manage to finish his paperwork on time. Sometimes, Al suspected that Ed and Roy were far more alike than either wanted to admit.

He skidded to a halt in front of Winry's door and knocked loudly. There was no answer. He knocked again, his knuckles beating a rapid tattoo against the wood. Still no answer.

Relieving his pockets of the spare key Winry had given he and Ed, Al opened the door and stepped inside, half-thinking that Winry was out and he would surprise her when she got back. But then he saw the small figure at the worktable, and realised why Winry hadn't answered the door.

She was fast asleep, her body slumped in her chair, her arms resting on the tabletop, folded beneath her head. She wasn't exactly snoring, but each inhalation was marked by a slight wheezing noise.

Al smiled, feeling a burst of sympathy as he realised how hard Winry must have been working to fall asleep at her table. Al approached her cautiously and, remembering her hair-trigger reactions when awakened, nudged the sole of her foot to rouse her.

But Winry didn't shoot to her feet and snatch up the nearest weapon. She didn't even open her eyes. Instead, her brow furrowed and she moaned softly.

Al nudged harder, and Winry's face scrunched up like a toddler about to have a crying fit. Her moan was louder this time, twisted by what sounded like pain. Becoming worried, Al finally grabbed Winry's shoulders, shaking the blonde girl lightly. His gentle motions became rougher as Winry began to toss her head, her arms twitching as though trying to dislodge his grip.

"...no..." she whispered. "...let go..."

"Winry!" Al called, certain she was having some sort of nightmare. "Winry, wake up! Winry!"

"Stop..."

"_Winry!_"

Winry's eyes snapped open, and Al had only a moment to register their glazed look before...

"_DON'T TOUCH ME!_" Winry screamed, twisting out of Al's grasp and flinging him across the room in one smooth motion.

Al managed to catch himself so he didn't break his arm in the fall. He struggled to his feet in time to see Winry advancing on him with a sleepwalker's absent expression, mixed with a tinge of fury and...utter terror.

In a sudden, breathless moment, Al realised Winry was still locked in her nightmare, and his attempt to wake her had been taken as a threat. His presence had been confused with one of the monsters that haunted the shadows of her mind; Winry didn't see him...she saw one of her tormentors. She believed she was striking out at those who had hurt her.

Something cold knotted in Al's stomach, and a cold sweat broke out on his skin. Al knew that if Winry attacked him – truly attacked him – he wouldn't stand a chance. His best bet was to try to somehow snap her out of the trance-like state she had sunk into.

"Winry..." he started. "Winry, it's Al..."

He just managed to dive out of the way as she lunged at him, and he had a feeling Winry's disorientated state was all that allowed him to avoid the blow that could have shattered his sternum. Winry grabbed for his throat and Al managed to seize her wrist.

"_Winry, don't do this! It's me – it's Al!_"

She moved to twist out of his hold but he seized her other wrist and shook her, hard.

"_It's okay, Winry – I'm not going to hurt you!_"

At Al's rough shake and desperate words, something seemed to snap, a sudden jerk rippling through Winry's body. Al didn't even feel Winry extracting herself from his grasp, but suddenly, she was across the room, her head buried in her hands, curled into a ball.

Something in Al was deeply shaken by what had just happened, self-preservation urging him to leave the house while his heart was still beating. But he could see the mechanic's shoulders shaking from across the room, and he knew this was Winry – not a crazed woman lashing out at those who had tortured her, but his oldest friend and surrogate sister, now in desperate need of comfort.

"Winry?" Al whispered. He approached her slowly, trying not to startle her.

"Get out," Winry choked, not even raising her head. "_Get out!_"

Al didn't even bother replying. He knelt beside her, hesitantly reaching out to touch her bowed head, his fingers resting on the golden crown of her hair. Winry knocked his hand away, and in the moment when her arm shifted away from her face Al realised she was crying.

Al remembered Ed telling him about Winry's flashback and the subsequent attack on the doctor, and could only imagine what she was feeling at having attacked again, but this time striking at someone much closer to her.

Al let his arm rest across her shoulders, ignoring her attempts to shrug him off. Despite Winry's feeble protests he could see she was in desperate need of comfort – and he knew that if she had really wanted to push him away, she never would have let him touch her in the first place. He gently tugged Winry towards him, and when he felt her stiffen he simply strengthened his grip, not allowing her to pull away.

Winry broke. Her shoulders slumped, her arms dropped, and instead of trying to struggle out of Al's gentle hold she suddenly turned and clung to him. Al held her, murmuring softly – he was hardly aware of the words that were coming out of his mouth, but his soothing tone and loving whispers seemed to be doing the trick.

He let Winry sob softly into his shoulder, one arm wound around her waist and the other hand stroking her hair. A small part of his mind found it almost amusing; that Winry had attacked him, but now _she_ was the one in need of comfort.

"What happened?" Al asked, when her sobs had quietened to dry gasps.

"I...I had a nightmare," Winry confessed. "I was remembering...nights...nights in the cell..."

Al winced – he didn't need any more explanation. But he didn't let her go – the youngest Elric continued to hold the woman he'd always regarded as his sister until she was calm again.

"Do you have...those dreams...often?" he queried, deeply concerned, as Winry wiped her eyes,

Winry's eyes slid away from his. "I haven't been sleeping," she admitted. "The nightmares...they're just too bad. I...I'm afraid to sleep."

Al gripped her hand briefly, understanding what it cost Winry to admit she was afraid.

Winry choked on a small sob, and though Al was half-expecting her to start crying again, her voice was steady when she spoke.

"This is...this is getting really bad," she said, her voice small and frightened. "I think...I think I need to see someone about this...a therapist or something..."

"I'll ask around," Al volunteered. "Ed, too. We might be able to get some names."

**oooooooo**

Winry woke with a jolt, her mind screaming in fear, her skin tingling in expectation of blows that never came. She stared wildly around the room, eyes seeking the shadows of her dreams before cold logic asserted itself, reminding her that those who had hurt her were long-dead.

She'd killed many of them herself.

With a sigh that trembled like a bare branch in the wind, Winry stood from the bed and began rifling through her drawers, following her therapist's advice. She had been seeing Dr. Conway for a few weeks now, and when Winry asked her for advice on dealing with nightmares, the doctor had recommended that she do something relaxing before trying to fall asleep again.

So whenever Winry woke from a nightmare, terrified and shaking, she went for a swim.

She had found the small river almost by accident while following a deer track through the park, the winding, tangled path leading her to a scene worthy of a woodland painting; a small opening in the trees beside the water, dappled with sunlight and shadow. But Winry wasn't one to be taken in by the aesthetic – it was the feeling of serenity, of calm, of utter peace that lured her back there time and time again.

She took that path now, picking her way carefully over bushes and pebbles as she wandered through the dark night. The water beckoned her onward, gleaming in the moonlight like a ribbon of silver.

Winry breathed a sigh. She was beginning to feel better already – out in the soft shadows of the night, with the cool breeze ruffling her hair, she could practically feel the tension melting away.

Winry left her towel on a flat rock that jutted out over the water, and slipped into the river with barely a ripple. She slowly immersed her body, treading water and letting the river flow past her, eddies and currents tugging at her skin. Somehow, the sensation always felt as though it were caressing her mind as well as her body, cleansing her of her memories even as it lifted the cold sweat from her flesh...

Winry floated in the river for a long time.

The cold water – and the chill slowly sinking into her bones – finally forced her back to dry land. Winry toweled herself dry, looking with regret at her moon-silvered skin, at the shadows cast by her scars. She ran her fingers over the marks gently, tracing the roughened flesh.

Sometimes, she wished the water could truly wash her scars away.

**oooooooo**

While the nights still had a slight chill about them, the days were definitely getting warmer. Winry found herself panting as she bent over an automail leg, beads of sweat trailing down her forehead and jaw.

When the idea of a swim crossed her mind, Winry made no pretense at resistance.

Except that when she reached her glade, she found someone already there.

Riza Hawkeye was sitting beside the river, and Winry found herself thinking the older woman looked strange when not wearing the Dissident uniform. Dressed casually, her hair down and her back still straight but lacking the rigidity of military posture...she seemed almost a different person.

Alerted by Winry's presence behind her, Riza turned to face the blonde mechanic, letting a soft smile tilt the corners of her mouth.

"I'm not surprised you know about this place," Riza remarked quietly.

Winry shrugged, feeling somehow as though she had been caught off-guard. "I found it by accident."

"A deer track through the park, correct?" Riza asked. "Trying to find somewhere secluded, alone...somewhere where memories could be calmed."

Winry realised Riza had been here frequently, too – probably trying to forget the memories of her own captivity.

"You came here, too," Winry stated. She wasn't too sure why she said it – something about finding Riza here had thrown her off, and perhaps she was trying to regain her sense of equilibrium in conversation.

But Riza didn't reply verbally, only nodded slightly.

"Do you still come here...at night?"

"No," Riza said simply. "I don't."

Winry cocked her head to one side, regarding Riza like a curious bird. The older woman could practically see the question weighing on Winry's tongue, and wondered if the young blonde would voice it.

"Then what do you do when you wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, a scream already welling in your throat?" Winry asked bluntly.

Riza hid a smile. She shouldn't have doubted Winry's...well, not tactlessness, exactly...confidence maybe.

Then, revealing more vulnerability than she had to anyone but Roy, Riza told her, "I wake the man sleeping beside me, and ask him to hold me."

Winry's eyes widened. Riza wasn't sleeping alone? She had a man beside her?

Winry knew sleeping was probably all it was – she didn't think Riza would be ready for anything else just yet – and Winry would also be fairly confident in stating the identity of the man.

Riza watched realisation settle over Winry's face, and felt a small glow of satisfaction. The younger woman was understanding the point she was trying to make. While she felt a little uncomfortable revealing such personal information, she knew she wanted to. Winry had helped her, and now that the mechanic was struggling with herself, Riza thought it was time she returned the favour.

When Ed and Al had discreetly asked for the name of a reliable therapist, Riza had known who they were asking on behalf of. She had recommended Dr. Conway, the doctor she herself was seeing, in the hope that therapy might benefit Winry as it had benefited her. She knew recovery would probably be a far more lengthly process for Winry – the young woman had been through things Riza couldn't even conceive of, so it would take far longer to work through. Winry had a long, hard path ahead of her, and Riza found herself wanting to help her take those first stumbling steps

"This is a beautiful place," Riza murmured, looking around them. "But it was tainted by my memories – while I felt calmer when I was here, I could never truly relax. But then..."

When Riza trailed into silence for several moments, she found it interesting to note that Winry didn't prompt her or show the slightest hint of impatience. She just stood where she was, staring at the older woman as though she knew Riza was going to continue, as long she gave the other woman time.

"But then I brought Roy here," Riza admitted.

She didn't say anything more – she didn't need to. Winry understood. Riza let Roy in, allowed him to share her pain...and didn't they say a burden shared was a burden halved? Winry remembered how relieved she'd felt when she finally blurted her story to Ed and Al.

So Winry smiled slightly and nodded, leaving Riza satisfied that her seed had been planted in fertile soil.

**oooooooo**

"I thought it only ever got this hot in Dublith or Rush Valley," Ed grumped as he stepped into Winry's house.

"It's not that bad," Al said, struggling valiantly to be cheerful in spite of the heat.

"Easy for you to say," Ed hissed. "I have automail – metal conducts heat, remember?"

Then he remembered how foolish it was to even insinuate Winry's creation were sub-par within her hearing, and whirled to face their host, half-expecting a wrench to come flying out of nowhere...but Winry's only reaction was a raised eyebrow.

"Feeling hot?" she asked, a slightly mischievous grin quirking her lips.

Ed glared, thinking that their reddened faces and sweat-dampened skin were speaking for themselves.

"Want to cool off?" she offered.

"Yes, please," Al said, looking eager at the prospect.

To both brothers' confusion, her smile suddenly softened, and her eyes held a strange light – as though she were inviting them into a secret.

"I know the perfect place," she said. "A little glade by the river where almost nobody goes..."

**oooooooo**

_AN: Thanks to LaughingAstarael for catching my grammar mistakes, and for making some suggestions that made this a better chapter._


	17. Stumbling Forward

**Chapter 17**

**Stumbling Forward**

As Ed and his brother stepped into Winry's apartment, he reflected that the blonde woman had done rather well for herself. Her automail business was well underway, she was becoming much more relaxed in both attitude and demeanor – she didn't flinch when she was touched anymore – and she stayed in regular contact with Paninya and the others in Rush Valley. Paninya even forwarded Scar and Envy's letters to her each month. When he last asked after them, Winry had told him they were doing 'as well as can be expected', whatever that meant.

He and Al had made a habit of stopping by Winry's apartment once a week to have dinner with her. Ed liked it when the three of them sat around Winry's table, eating and talking or just sharing comfortable silences. It felt like home.

He glanced towards the shelf, his eyes drawn automatically to the four photos resting in places of pride. The first was of Winry, her parents, Pinako and Den on the porch, Winry playing with the young puppy while her parents and grandparent looked on. Another showed her, Ed and Al as children, the photo snapped on the sly during a meal. Al was frozen in the act of reaching for a plate of rolls, and Ed and Winry were squabbling over the last slice of ham. The largest picture displayed Winry, Paninya, Scar, Breda and Envy standing outside Last Hope, their arms slung companionably around each other's shoulders. Breda, Winry and Paninya beamed happily at the camera, Envy was smirking devilishly and Scar was expressionless save for a slight crinkle of amusement at the corners of his eyes. The most recent photo depicted Travis, Christa, Kyle and little Winry, the parents beaming over their child with Travis looking every inch the proud uncle.

So many people smiled from the shelf, all of whom had been important to Winry in some way. The shelf was a silent record of those she had loved, those who helped her grow into the person she was now – almost like the roll of credits at the end of a movie. It seemed as though Winry were saying, _'You know me as I am, these are the people who helped to make me what I am.'_

Or maybe Ed was reading too much into it.

"Are you doing okay, Winry?" Ed asked as they sat down, already reaching for the stew.

Winry shrugged. "I'm still seeing the shrink, I still have nightmares, and I still jolt awake expecting an attack sometimes. So...no, I'm not okay. But..." her voice softened. "But I think I'm going to be."

Ed felt something warm and happy bloom in his chest at her words.

"What about you guys?" Winry asked. "What are you planning to do?"

"I think I'd like to stay in the military," Al mused. "At least for now. Maybe become an alchemical doctor like Marcoh."

"I think you'd be good at that, Al," Winry commented. "What about you, Ed?"

"Not sure," Ed admitted. "I know I want to stay in the military – we've made friends there – but aside from that..."

"You'll figure it out," Winry assured him, with a smile that made Ed feel like he could conquer the world.

**oooooooo**

Ed knew he should be sleeping. But he'd felt unusually restless – it was a hot night, and he'd finally decided a little midnight swim in the river could only help him. Normally, he wouldn't have braved the dark path to the glade Winry had shown he and Al at night, but the full moon in the sky provided more than enough pale, silvery light to see by.

Except that when he reached the river, Ed was surprised to find someone already there.

Winry was perched on one of the flat rocks that bordered the water, and judging by the moonlight glistening on her damp skin and the bikini-like swimwear she was clad in, she'd already taken a dip. Ed stopped in his tracks about fifteen feet behind her, knowing he should say or do something to alert Winry to his presence but unable to rip his mind away from the spectacle she presented long enough to do so. He stared at her back, mesmerised by the soft curve as her shoulders joined her neck, fascinated by the slight dip of her spine...and suppressing a twinge of pain at the scars that striped across her skin.

Ed's hitch of breath as he registered the lines of calloused flesh alerted Winry, who had to have been rather distracted in the first place to let him sneak up on her like that. She yelped and spun around, snatching at the towel resting beside her and using it to cover herself.

"_What did you see?_" she hissed, her voice as urgent and charged as if she had screamed the words. "_How much did you see? Did-_"

She cut herself off, biting her lip and falling silent. Her eyes avoided his, staring at a pebble at her feet as though it held all the secrets of the universe; a faint darkening spreading across her cheeks seeming almost a blush of shame.

It was then Ed realised that, in spite of her confidence and her apparent willingness to brazenly display them, at heart Winry was probably deeply ashamed of the patchwork of scars that danced across her skin – even when she'd taken he and Al here, she hadn't gone swimming with them, just lain on a rock beside the river and dragged her arm in the water. Because no matter how often she told herself her scars were nothing to hide, no matter how much she tried to show them off, to be proud of them...some voice inside her kept telling her that she wasn't right, that she wasn't meant to look like this.

Ed had felt the same when he first acquired automail. As though he wasn't whole, wasn't right...

Winry had helped him then: her obsession with automail, her absolute love for the artificial limbs, her utter ease with them – as though they were normal, as though they were _right_ – smoothing over his worries and quieting his doubts.

He wanted to be able to do the same for her, he just didn't know how. But as Winry continued to chew her lip and stare at the ground, Ed knew he had to do something.

Trying to convince himself he wasn't making the biggest mistake of his life, Ed reached forward and gently pulled her into a hug.

Winry stiffened, resisting at first but soon surrendering to his embrace. She didn't even blink as he slowly lowered them to the rock beneath their feet, didn't try to pull away even when she was practically sitting in his lap, one arm hugging her to him and the other stroking her shoulders.

His hand dipped down, running over her back and the ridged scar tissue he found there. Primarily horizontal lines, but most with a diagonal slant to them, he let his fingers waltz across the hardened flesh, following the lines.

"You should be proud, Winry," he said softly, his hand coming to a slow stop on her back. "Be proud of your scars...they all tell a story."

He hesitated a moment, then ploughed ahead. "Where did these come from? These ones on your back?"

Winry inhaled sharply, and even though Ed half-expected her to refuse to tell him, she spoke.

"When I was first caught," she said dully. "The torture...when they whipped me, some...some cut deep enough to scar. And it didn't help that they never gave me any real medical treatment..."

Ed swallowed, his fingers moving across Winry's hip and down to the ragged line across her leg. From mid-thigh, it curved down to her knee, and Ed could tell it had narrowly avoided the femoral artery.

"One of the 'tests'," Winry murmured, "In Angel's Nest. I was too slow in dodging a knife."

Ed tried to keep his expression open and trustworthy, tried to not to let the sorrow and anger he was feeling leak out. He had to make Winry feel comfortable telling him this, and somehow, he knew she would feel the most comfortable if he reacted as little as possible.

His hand moved again, tracing the mark on her stomach, as though someone had gutted her. But he knew that wasn't the story behind it...

"That's where they..." Winry sniffled slightly. "That's where they...they cut the baby out..."

Ed's breath hissed between his clenched teeth. It hurt to remember that though Marcoh could heal the damage the forced abortion caused, he couldn't heal the scar it left.

"Sometimes..." Winry murmured. "Sometimes I think 'what if they'd let me have it'? I mean, the kid would be almost four years old now...and I think I could have been a good mother..."

Ed held back a snort. The idea of Winry – caring, compassionate, overprotective Winry – as anything _but_ a good mother...

"Still, I couldn't have had a baby in Angel's Nest, could I?" Winry said, sounding resigned.

Ed held her tighter. When it became apparent she wasn't going to say anything more, he moved to caress the long slash down her side. She had mentioned that it was a relic of an assassination attempt...

"I woke up to someone looming over me," Winry explained. "I rolled out of the way instinctively, so all I got was this slash down my side, and then everyone else woke up and Envy broke the guy's neck."

Ed knew the stories behind the so-called 'cookie-cutter' scar and the mark bisecting the transmutation circle, but he let his fingertips trail along them anyway. His hand rose to her collarbone, touching a small circle of darkened flesh beneath it.

"During one of the raids of the prison camps," Winry told him. "One of the guards got in a lucky shot. I was bleeding all over the place but Breda managed to patch me up before it got really nasty."

He let his hand roam to the other shoulder, where a small, wrinkled circle was caressed slowly.

Winry swallowed. "That was the torture again – the guy used to put his cigarettes out on me. That was the only one that scarred, though."

Ed's hand wandered over her shoulders, brushing her shoulderblades and the irregular lines left by the whip...and then he touched a scar that was different. It felt rougher, more jagged...and it travelled vertically down her back.

Winry smiled a little. "Remember what I told you about the guy that got a knife into my back?"

Ed nodded. He remembered her telling them that story when Al first asked her why she called Marcoh 'Miracle-worker'. He shifted until he was looking over her shoulder, staring at her back and the vicious, six-inch scar that told of one of the many attempts on her life. He could see the lines the whip left, and with a start he realised there was another mark, on her lower back. It was darker than the others, like ink...in fact, it almost looked like some sort of symbol...

With a start, he realised that was exactly what it was. A symbol tattooed on her flesh. He didn't recognise the symbol – an intricate but beautiful sign inked onto the skin of her lower back.

"Winry..." he began, wetting his lips. "Why do you have a tattoo on your back?"

Winry blushed. "Well, uh...did you know Envy can make a lot of sense when you're really drunk?"

"You got drunk and Envy talked you into a tattoo?" Ed clarified, trying not to laugh.

"Paninya, too," Winry reflected. "Breda knew the guy who did it, and come to think of it, Scar suggested that symbol..." Winry laughed slightly. "I think they conspired against me!"

"What is it?" Ed asked curiously.

"An Ishbalan symbol," Winry replied. "It means 'inner strength'."

Ed mulled that over in his head for a few moments.

"I think it suits you," he blurted out. "I mean, it's kind of appropriate, isn't it?"

Winry blushed again.

Both Ed's hands were moving now, down her arms, his flesh and blood fingers finding small scars scattered across her forearms. They were very faint – you couldn't see them unless you were looking for them, or your fingertips were seeking that scrape of roughened skin that told of a scar.

"When I fought Scar," Winry said in a low voice. "He blew up some rocks in my face. I tried to dodge, but there were these little bits of stone flying through the air, and when I raised my hands to shield my face..."

She trailed off, but Ed knew what had happened. The debris had sliced into her arms instead. He didn't say anything, though, just let his hand wander to the numbers tattooed on her wrist – tattoos Winry had never wanted nor consented to – his fingertips gently moving across the painted flesh.

He meant what he said when he told her she should be proud of her scars. Each mark was an affirmation of her courage, a silent witness to her determination to let nothing and no one break her, a testament to her will to survive.

Ed couldn't help thinking that there was something deeply intimate in this – caressing her scars as Winry told him the story behind each mark.

Winry sighed as Ed traced the tattoo on her wrist. She was almost embarrassed about the way she was leaning into his embrace, but she couldn't help it. She really did feel like her scars were something to be proud of when he touched them with that look of reverent awe in his eyes, and being held like this made her feel comforted, treasured...even loved.

The hand that Ed wasn't cradling in his rose to the scar on his neck. She didn't need to be told where it came from – he had already told her about his tussle with the Angel of Death – but she wanted to return the gesture he was giving her.

She froze as Ed's hand reached her face, touched the tip of the prominent scar running from cheek to chin.

Ed couldn't help but think how this scar, and the accompanying chipped tooth, could create such contrasting images. When she smiled, it made the expression almost child-like, but when her lips twisted in a grimace or a snarl, it seemed terrifying. But now...now it seemed to neither endear nor repel – it seemed to enhance her, enhance her beauty and maturity; a hint of the trials she had endured, a glimpse of the strength of the woman she had become.

"That was one of the H-Faction's alchemists," Winry admitted. "I don't really know what he did – it involved somehow firing spears of metal from the ground, and one caught me in the face...it was a good thing Paninya and Travis were close enough to take him down before he finished me off..."

She inhaled sharply as Ed's fingers ran down the scar, pausing to caress her lips, slightly parted as her breath puffed over his hand. The moment seemed powerfully charged as they sat there in silence, embracing in the moonlight, one hand on each other's scars, learning each other's pain.

Ed stared at Winry's eyes, pupils dilated in the silvery light, soft blue irises reflecting the sprinkling of stars in the sky. It felt right, it felt natural, to lean forward and touch his lips to hers.

Winry's lips weren't the rose-petal soft described by so much flowery poetry, but they were warm and _real_. He could see her eyes widen in shock and realisation, and hear the thundering of her heart. He could smell the gentle, clean smell of Winry – enhanced by her swim – and taste the slightest hint of toothpaste on her mouth. He could feel the hard ridges of scar tissue pressing against his own lips.

They drew back, but not by much and not for long. Ed hugged Winry tightly, crushing her to his chest and burying his face in her her hair, still slightly damp from her midnight swim. He was pleased to feel her arms snake around his waist and hold him to her just as tightly.

"Winry," he breathed into her hair. "I think I love you."

"That's good," Winry whispered. "Because I think I love you, too."

"Oh," Ed said in relief, because while some part of him had expected that to be the case, he hadn't been sure. And nothing had prepared him for the sudden rush of hopeful joy swelling his chest when she whispered those few, precious words.

He noticed that Winry was shaking. He panicked at first, thinking he had pushed for too much too soon, but he realised that Winry was shaking with _laughter_.

"What's so funny?" he asked, slightly miffed at the idea she might be making fun of him.

Winry titled her head up to his and beamed. "We're priceless, aren't we?"

Replaying their 'confession' over in his mind, the humour of the situation struck Ed all at once, and he found himself laughing too.

**oooooooo**

Ed didn't know how they arrived back at Winry's apartment, or how she talked him into staying the night, or how she managed to persuade him that both of them in the same bed was better than one on the couch. When he tried to recall what had happened, he simply couldn't.

Ed hadn't really been paying attention. He had been caught up in the feel of her, of meaningless looks that suddenly weren't so meaningless, of incidental touches on hand and shoulder that suddenly weren't so incidental.

He lay next to her in the sheets, watching her breathing slow and even out, watching her eyelids begin to flicker as she entered REM sleep. He was tired – a good kind of tired, the peaceful, contented kind – but he found himself not wanting to go to sleep. Ed found himself wanting to stay awake and watch her, watch the way she breathed, the way she moved, the expressions that crossed her face while she slept.

But even Edward Elric must give in to unconsciousness eventually, and he didn't even remember when his eyes slid closed.

**oooooooo**

"...stop..."

Ed shifted, blinking awake. It took a moment for him to remember why he wasn't in his own bed. On the heels of that realisation came the sudden shock that Winry was tossing in the bed beside him, moaning.

"No..." she breathed, her expression pained. "No...don't touch me...let me go..."

Ed didn't need to be a psychologist to know what she was dreaming about. His heart twisted in his chest as Winry whimpered like a terrified child.

He didn't hold her – something told him that might make the nightmare worse – instead he stroked her face gently, trying to soothe her.

"It's okay, Winry," he whispered. "It's okay. It's me – it's Ed."

Winry's face slowly relaxed, and she turned her head into her hand, her body shifting towards his, snuggling up to him. Ed smiled, pleased that even in sleep, Winry recognised that he wasn't a threat.

Gently, trying not to wake her, he brushed a stray strand of hair from her face, smoothing the blonde locks back into place.

"I love you," he whispered, just to hear the words out loud.

"Love you, too, Ed." Her sleepy voice took a year off his life.

"You're awake?" he yelped, blushing that she had caught him fawning over her like some suitor in a cheesy romance novel.

Tired blue eyes blinked up at him, and then he remembered what had awoken him in the first place.

"Are you okay?" he asked anxiously. "I mean, you were having a nightmare..."

"I'm okay," Winry murmured. "They aren't too frequent anymore, and I don't wake up terrified – the therapy helps."

Ed was still frowning.

"Don't worry, Ed," Winry chided, punctuating her words with a kiss on his lips, loving the fact that she _could_.

But Ed seemed slightly uncomfortable, so she drew back slightly. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he said, but he wouldn't meet her eyes.

Winry suppressed a sigh. "Ed, you need to be honest with me here – it's the only way this is going to work," she told him bluntly.

"That's just the thing," he blurted. "What is this? I mean, we know we're in love-"

Winry worked hard to stifle the giggle that rose in her throat as Ed flushed at his own words.

"-and we hug and...and kiss...but I don't...I'm not sure..."

Winry could see Ed was floundering, and tried to extend a helping verbal hand. "You're not sure what we do now?"

Ed nodded, apparently deeply embarrassed at having to ask – as though he expected himself to just know. Only Edward Elric would think the lack of telepathic powers was a serious flaw.

"I want to keep it light," Winry confessed. "The kissing is nice...maybe a few dates now and then...but..."

She took a deep breath. "I don't want it to get too serious – at least, not for a while yet. I mean, the way I am now...if I go into something heavy, I'll probably screw it up. We should probably just take it one step at a time."

"One step at a time," Ed agreed.

"Does that answer your question?"

Ed nodded. "I think so."

"Good. Now let's go back to sleep."

Winry promptly snuggled into Ed's chest and shut her eyes, and he decided to follow her example.

But just before his eyes closed, he couldn't help but reflect on how Winry's decision sat with him. And Ed decided he liked it. Most of his life had been a rush – it would be nice to take something slowly for once. Especially something as important as this.

"Ed, the spinning wheels of your brain are keeping me awake," Winry mumbled into his shoulder. "Sleep now, think later."

He smiled. "You first."

Winry blinked up at him, then rolled her eyes, gave the long-suffering sigh she had often employed when dealing with Envy, and settled herself back down, preparing to drift off again. Ed was surprised when her breathing evened out almost immediately – it spoke volumes of the trust she placed in him.

That was when Ed knew it was going to be alright. It wouldn't be easy, it wouldn't be perfect...but it would be alright.

**oooooooo**

_AN: Once again, a huge thank you to LaughingAstarael, who beta-ed this chapter. Now there's only one more to go before the story is finished - hang in there, people!_


	18. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

_Eight years later:_

Envy's feet kicked up dust on the dirt path that snaked across the hills like a dirtied ribbon, unable to help but wonder what had happened to Winry over the years. He had written to her obediently, but she could never write back since he travelled so much – there was never any dependable address. He had only recently found out his letters had been re-directed through Paninya, as Winry had moved to Central shortly after he left and then later, back to Risembool.

He had been feeling a sudden urge to see her, an urge that had grown and grown until it was an insatiable, burning curiosity. A need to know what had befallen her over the years since they had parted.

And he probably couldn't have timed it better. After going to Rush Valley in the hopes of seeing her, he had been informed by a girl he assumed was Paninya's roommate about the redirected mail, and the fact that Paninya herself had recently set out to Risembool for a little get-together Winry had been planning.

And now here he was, trudging along a dirt road to a large, yellow-painted house standing proudly in the fields.

Envy decided it looked like a happy home. A line of washing was hanging out to dry, and a small group of children were playing the yard. But it was the wooden sign standing proudly outside that brought a slightly satisfied grin to his face.

_'Elric Automail.'_

"Guess she jumped him after all," he mused, opening the gate and stepping into the yard, where Christa and Paninya were playing with four children and a large brown and white dog.

The dog, noticing his presence, bounded towards him, barking frantically. Without even looking up, Christa called out to the animal.

"Max, down!"

Envy gave the dog a few half-hearted pats on the head, waiting for one of the women to recognise him. Paninya, poised to tickle a red-headed girl with a glint of mischief in her eyes, froze when she realised who had just entered the yard.

"Something wrong with your eyes, Pan?" he needled.

"E-Envy?" Paninya stuttered.

He grinned.

"Nice to see you again," Christa said diplomatically.

Envy didn't bother with polite greetings. Instead, he stared at the small children who were eyeing him warily. "Who are the ankle-biters?"

"Oh, right," Paninya said, "Introductions!"

She pulled the redhead forward, at the same time snagging the arm of a boy with bright blue eyes and a mop of messy black hair. "Remember Winry Seren? She's turning eight this year, and this is her brother, Marcus – he's five."

Envy nodded briefly in acknowledgment.

"Amelia Mustang's just turned three, and her brother – Colin – is six years old."

Colin had soft blonde hair while his sister had black, faintly-curled locks. But both had the same dark, inky eyes as their father.

Meanwhile, Paninya seemed to be looking for something. "The twins are around here somewhere..."

But then Scar came around the corner, and Envy forgot everything else in favour of the spectacle the man presented. The normally stoic Ishbalan looked very out of place with a laughing and shrieking child hanging off each arm.

"Uncle Scar! Uncle Scar!"

Envy took one look at the two children and knew they could be nothing but Winry's progeny. The girl was a miniature replica of Winry, save that her eyes were a bright amber, and the boy could have passed for a younger Ed if his eyes hadn't been a soft blue.

"There they are!" Paninya sighed in relief. "This is Joseph and Grace."

Envy, however, ignored the children in favour of needling the Ishbalan as the man's passengers slid from his arms to the ground. "Uncle Scar?"

Scar raised an eyebrow, then bent to Joseph and Grace's level. "Take a good look, children...who is this?"

The twins looked at Envy, furrowing their brows and appearing to concentrate deeply. Then suddenly their expressions cleared in abrupt recognition, and they launched themselves at him. Two small cannonballs hit him around the waist, tackling him backwards onto the grass. Envy's arms rose automatically to clutch the twins to him, shielding them from any accidental hurt caused by the fall.

"Uncle Envy!" they shrilled, making him grit his teeth against the shouts almost right next to his ear. "Uncle Envy!"

"Now everyone's here!" Grace laughed. "Uncle Scar, Auntie Pan, Uncle Breda, Uncle Roy, Auntie Riza-"

Envy had a moment to be dizzied by the list of family who weren't really family.

"And we didn't think you'd come," Joseph added. "You never come!"

"Mummy always showed us your picture and said you were our uncle-"

"But whenever we asked why you didn't visit, she said you were travelling-"

Envy was about to protest that he was no one's uncle (and where did Winry get off telling her children he was?) but was cut off when Riza opened the door just enough to lean out and called to them.

"Lunch! Everyone inside!"

At the mention of food, she had all six childrens' attention. They responded in a chorus of voices.

"Coming, Mummy!"

"Yes, Mrs. Mustang!"

"We're coming, Auntie Riza!"

The interior of the house was bursting with activity. Roy and his wife were making themselves comfortable at the dining table, while Kyle, Breda and Fuery set out plates and cutlery. The kitchen walls seemed to be straining at the edges as Ed, Winry, Travis and Marcoh hovered around the stove, shouting suggestions, crashing into saucepans and in general creating comfortable mayhem.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Ed asked, spotting the green-haired man in the doorway.

"Ed!" Winry chided, rapping the back of his hand with a spoon as he reached for the potatoes. "Be nice! And wait until you're sitting at the table before stuffing your face!"

Then she turned, and Envy wondered at the changes in her. She didn't stand tall and stiff any more, but seemed relaxed, comfortable in her own skin in a way he'd never seen her before. Her eyes were bright, no longer shadowed with unspoken pain and suffering, but soft and happy – a woman perfectly content in who and what she was.

"Hey, Pidgeon," Envy said quietly.

"Hey, Envy," she greeted, a small smile playing around her lips. "Been having fun on your travels?"

"Not as much fun as I could show you," he leered, falling back into their old pattern of flirtation and taunts.

Winry raised an eyebrow. "I'm a married woman, Envy – you wouldn't tryst with another man's wife, would you?"

He grinned.

"What am I saying?" Winry muttered. "Of course you would."

Envy's grin shifted to a smirk as he spoke to a glowering Ed, "What's the matter, Fullmetal? Not gonna threaten to break my arm if I touch your wife?"

Surprisingly, Ed's face cleared as he chuckled. "Nope. I think we both know that if you touch her, _she'll_ be the one breaking your arm."

Envy privately thought the alchemist was right about that, but he wasn't going to inform Ed.

"Put this on the table," Winry instructed, pushing a plate of roast into Envy's hands.

Amazing – he hadn't been back five minutes and already Winry was ordering him around. Halfway into the dining room, Envy nearly ran over Al, and it was only his superhuman reflexes that allowed him to save the roast.

"Hey, Envy," Al smiled, and Envy had a moment to reflect on who surreal this was. He had been absent for eight years, yet the greetings he received made it seem as though he'd just gone down to the shops for some milk. As though he hadn't really been away.

He realised Al was cradling a small bundle in his arms – a small, squirming, whining bundle.

"Another kid?" Envy asked, peering into tiny hazel eyes covered by a fringe of blonde fuzz.

"This is Nina," Al explained. "She's only a few months old."

"Another of Fullmetal's and Pidgeon's, I take it?"

Al nodded, then winced as his niece seized a lock of his hair in her fingers and tugged hard.

"Easy, Nina," he pleaded, trying to prise her fist open. "Uncle Al likes his hair, don't pull it out..."

Envy rolled his eyes, and left the younger Elric brother fumbling as he tried to hold the baby in his arms and extricate his hair at the same time. The scene was so disgustingly sweet he felt the need to brush his teeth in case of cavities.

**oooooooo**

Lunch was pleasant chaos. An extra place setting was laid for Envy, and he sat elbow to elbow with Fuery and Scar, staring bemusedly at the bedlam.

The twins were competing as to who could eat the most food, a contest that seemed to involve grabbing anything remotely edible and shovelling it down as fast as possible. At least, until Winry and Ed came in – then it changed to eating politely when their parents were looking and resuming shovelling when they weren't.

Winry took Nina from Al, cradling her daughter in one arm and eating the meal with the other hand with the ease of long practice. Marcus and Amelia started sneaking food to Max under the table, a practice that quickly ceased when they were caught by their respective fathers. Colin was showing off for little Winry, sketching a transmutation circle on his plate with the remnants of the gravy.

"Colin Maes Mustang!" Riza snapped, sounding like nothing short of an ill-tempered drill sergeant. "Get that transmutation circle off your plate this instant!"

With a guilty blush, Colin erased it with a swirl of his finger.

Winry laughed with Paninya and Christa over some private joke that set Ed blushing. Al and Marcoh were discussing the latest advancements in medical alchemy, with Roy and Travis occasionally interjecting their own opinions. Fuery and Riza made an effort to be heard above the din, in a conversation that Envy only heard snatches of – it seemed to be about who would next be elected president. Scar was engaged in conversation by Breda – at least, Breda was talking and Scar was nodding occasionally.

Sitting down at the Elric's dining table, listening to the chaos and uproar of the family they had built around them, Envy realised he had never felt more at home. And as Winry's laugh rang clearly through the room, Envy allowed himself a small, private smile.

It seemed that Winry, at last, had found happiness.

**End.**

**oooooooo**

_AN: I must say, I feel especially proud of this fic. I've had a shot at post-war stories before ('Blue Eyes' and 'When The Dust Settles' ), but I really felt I created something special with this one – it really became a world of its own, and I couldn't be happier._

_Thanks to everyone who followed and reviewed this fic, with special mention going to LaughingAstarael, who was an excellent beta and wonderfully supportive for this entire story. _

_And also a big thank you to justcallyme, who drew a wonderful fanart of Commander Winry – go check out my profile for the link!_


End file.
